Rootless
by chesxca
Summary: You're a famous singer, and I'm your biggest fan. So why are we walking down the aisle together at my best friends wedding?
1. Chapter 1

11:57 P.M

"For fuck's sake..." What people said about watching a clock and it not moving was true, he was sure that it had been 11:55 three whole hours ago and the clock on his computer just had to be broken. Checking his phone gave him the same dreadful news, the fact he still had three minutes left until midnight when he was this tired was just cruel and unusual punishment. Gajeel knew he wasn't exactly the most patient person in the world, and he was working on that. But the last fifteen minutes felt more like years, and the current weight of his eyelids was making him grumpier by the second. Nobody would believe it if they found out he had been sitting around and marking the days off his calendar for the last three months, and he would probably punch someone in the face for telling such a lie. Even if everything worked out in his favor, midnight was just going to be a date between him, his debit card and the page he couldn't stop refreshing.

Gajeel had been a music lover as long as he could remember, he used to blow all his money on metal shows in high school, and would end up doing odd jobs here and there just to have enough money to buy a shirt or something hoping to get it signed. He didn't grow up in a big city, so he would end up going to local shows just to feel something close to the rush he could only get at bigger shows. By the end of the night he would either end up drunk, or in a fight or both if he was lucky, on the unlucky nights he would end up arrested or banned for taking things to far. Over the years his visits to shows and concerts had become few in far, if it was an artist he really loved he would dish out the money for it and take the weekend off work just in case. It was cheaper and a lot less likely for him to get in trouble if he just stayed home and had a couple beers before bed, instead of fighting for his life in a mosh pit like his teenage self loved to do.

Gajeel checked his phone again, and rolled his eyes again at the fact that time still hadn't moved. The only plus side of this situation is he got to sneak a peek at the very reason he was currently losing sleep. He didn't know when his little obsession with her started, or when it got out of hand. But the fact that he had a picture of the same woman in his locker at work, plastered on his wall, as a back ground on his phone and his computer was enough proof that he more than just liked the woman in question more than for just her music. He didn't know if it made things better or worse that all the images were different, Gajeel blamed social media for feeding his problem, he followed her updates on instagram just to see what she was wearing and what she was doing everyday. Secretly he was hoping she would post an update saying she was nearby just to "accidentally" run into her one day. The current background of his phone was one he stole off of her page while he was on his lunch break, she was visiting some popular aquarium on the other side of the country and someone took a picture of her admiring the jellyfish. Like most pictures of her this one took his breathe away, the whole image was blue, either from the lighting in the room or some filter from the picture app.

This wasn't the first time Gajeel had developed a crush on a girl before, but it was never a hiding in the bushes, stalking you, you haunt my dreams like crush that he had now. He was worse than one of those little teenage fan girls , all he was missing was the shrine in his closet and spending his life savings on some gum she chewed or air that she breathed at a concert or something equally insane. He wasn't sure if it was just the music that hooked him though, sure he could sing all of her songs word for word, and he could play more than a couple of them himself when he took the time to learn the sheet music and do his own rendition when he was trying to get his mind off of work. Gajeel thought a lot of her work was catchy, and even though it wasn't exactly his style, she had a way with words and the way she sang with his heart just seemed to touch his soul. Sometimes it bothered him that more of her work wasn't on the radio, but most of the songs on there were cookie cutter bullshit and trash he often turned off so he could understand why she didn't change her sound to be more radio friendly. There was just something about hearing such a sweet and angelic voice say "Fuck You." She gave him fucking chills, he felt like he know her soul and that it spoke to his long before he knew she looked like.

Gajeel wasn't really interested in her looks at first because he knew from seeing a lot of popular artists on TV and online that they would sell out quick as soon as they got popular and start some gimmick for attention, or get a bunch of plastic surgery and their before picture was always a lot better than their tragic after image. It was almost six months after hearing her sing for the first time did he get curious enough to actually look up one of her music videos online, and it was an acoustic version of one his favorite songs by her. Gajeel didn't know what she looked like all glammed up for one of her other videos, or when she performed live, but love at first sight would be an understatement when he watched a girl in an all black dress with vibrant blue hair sing his favorite song with such heart it actually took his breath away. He watched that video on repeat for an hour before he decided to make himself go to bed, over the next few weeks he found himself watching all of her videos, interviews, acoustic shows and even live videos from concerts fans shot. He remembered watching some fan made video with random pictures of her, and in the comments it said all the pictures were taken from her Instagram, and he ended up spending hours just trying to take a peek into her life. Now he followed her bands profile and her personal one just for updates because he didn't miss a thing. Gajeel was in love, even if it did make him a creep.

* * *

"Hey Gajeel..." He didn't remember falling asleep, but her waking him up at his desk was almost a nightly thing, he was a pretty heavy sleeper so she would have to shake his shoulders a few times before he would crack an eye open and acknowledge that someone had been talking to him for an unknown amount of time. "You're working too much again, and its really late. Will you come to bed with me?" Gajeel had a hard time telling her no, especially when it was something as simple as lets go to sleep together. He knew without her saying anything that she stayed up with him just to make sure he didn't spend the night asleep at his desk like he did for years before she came into his life. His bed was on the other side of the room, but it might as well been on the other side of the world with how tired he was, he had a bad habit of sleeping in his clothes, but she always took the time to help him out of them, no matter how grumpy he was being. "Don't worry Gajeel, your works not going anywhere, you probably just need to look at it with fresh eyes and a good nights sleep." He meant to say something along the lines of "Yeah, you're right." Or "Thank you for taking care of me." But it came out more of a grunt when she helped him pull his shirt off and throw it in a hamper before moving to unbutton his pants.

Gajeel knew he threw himself into his work all the time, and sometimes he wouldn't come out for weeks at a time. Sometimes if no one put it right in front of his face he wouldn't eat until he felt like he was knocking on deaths door, and he wouldn't sleep until his body rebelled against him and he would just pass out from exhaustion. He knew it wasn't good for him, but he was working on a case that take some dirt bag off the streets that came first, and his health would be put on the back burner until he was sure he did everything he could. Gajeel never thought he would have time for love, but when she came along he just knew things were too good to let go and she understood him enough to know when she needed to step in and when she needed to let things go. "I knew you were just pretending to be nice just so you could take advantage of me." No matter how tired Gajeel was, he still made the joke every time he had to be helped out of his clothes. They both knew there was no way he could stay awake long enough to make love to her right now, but the thought crossed his mind and there was always the morning holding her in his arms was more than enough. He knew he probably drifted off to sleep, long before she did, but she always stayed in bed with him so he would never wake up alone even if she woke up hours before he did. Gajeel didn't know a lot, but he knew he loved her and that she was everything he ever needed.

* * *

12:15 A.M

Shit. He didn't mean to fall asleep, but all that waiting had been taking a toll on him. Gajeel wasn't surprised at all that she was once again haunting him in his dreams, he dreamed of her often. He was so tired that he dreamed about being tired and just cuddling for once, holding her in his arms felt so real that he was having a hard time convincing himself that he's never actually met her in person. She was some famous singer who traveled around the world, and he was just some city cop that had an unhealthy obsession with her. Most his dreams about her weren't so mild, he's woken up in the middle of the night many times because imagining her squirming in pleasure under him was enough to make his brain explode. And the cold showers barely didn't do much to calm him down after a dream like that. When he woke up this morning he knew he was going to have to wait almost eighteen hours until midnight, and he was sure he counted every second at least twice. At least after three months all of his waiting was over and he could finally go to sleep after this, he could still get a full six hours if he pressed snooze a few times and just get breakfast on the way to work.

Gajeel tried his best to compose himself and ignore the burning of his eyes, he followed all of the steps and security questions on the website so he could get himself in line to buy a ticket to her upcoming concert next month. He read online that the tickets for other cities were getting bought up pretty quickly and people were selling them online for almost double the price. Gajeel watched the clock count down to let him know how long he had to wait to choose what kind of ticket he wanted, he knew the prices ranged between sixty bucks and a little over a hundred depending on how close you wanted to be, and if things worked out Gajeel would be close enough to see that smile of hers in person. He knew it was a creepy thought, and if he didn't pay attention to what he was doing he would doze off again and probably dream about their wedding or something weird like that. When the time timer finally got down to zero Gajeel thought his heart stopped.

*SOLD OUT* He felt sick, all this waiting and planning he did was for nothing. He refreshed the page a few times just to make sure it wasn't a mistake, and it wouldn't even let him get back in line to search for a ticket. He opened another tab and searched for the tickets on the resale site, he was really going to throw up now, the ticket prices on there started at four hundred dollars and he knew the ones that were more expensive were the good ones, and there was no way in hell he was blowing that type of money to sit in the nosebleeds. Gajeel buried his face in his hands and tried his best to control his temper, he knew there was possibility that he wouldn't be able to get a ticket, but he thought he would at least be able to get a shitty one. He unlocked his phone and checked her Instagram to see she was excited about the tickets in his city selling out so fast, but she mentioned at the bottom of her comment that there was still tickets available in a city about an hour away. Gajeel sighed, was he really going to do this, he wasn't going to get his hopes up, but checking wouldn't hurt anything. He watched the timer count down again and this time it showed him a map of the venue and he tried clicking spots close to the stage. Most of the tickets were sold out, besides the ones way at the top of the venue. He scrolled down just to check the prices and saw most of them were around sixty bucks or so, when he scrolled farther he saw a really expensive one that made his heart jump into his throat.

*MEET AND GREET* Gajeel didn't even know that was an option before, he heard about different fans getting to meet the band and take pictures with them before, but he thought they were just random lucky bastards. He didn't know you could just pay a bunch of money and then you're guaranteed to meet her, Gajeel planned on blowing a hundred bucks on a ticket just to see her sing, he didn't know if he was actually going to drive an hour away and spend two hundred dollars just to spend who knows how long with her. Gajeel was too tired to argue with himself about this, he pressed confirm payment and closed his laptop before finally climbing into bed. He didn't know if this whole thing was going to be worth the trouble, or the money, but at least he could go on with his life without wondering what if.


	2. Chapter 2

A bit of confusion in the last chapter, but Gajeel was dreaming in the middle section. This chapter is more about background for Gajeel but we will be getting to Idol Levy soon.

* * *

5:58 am

Gajeel pulled himself out of bed with a groan, he managed to get himself almost a full five hours of sleep before his alarm clock gave him a nasty reminder that he had people to arrest and paperwork to do. Five hours didn't seem like a lot, but it was two more hours than he got the night before, sleepless nights were just apart of his job. When him and his partner was on stakeouts it would be a lot of fast food, coffee and them taking turns napping for an hour or two. His boss and his partner both warned him that he should stop taking his work home, apparently it was a mistake all young cops would do until they suffered a mental breakdown and either quit or transferred to a department where they dealt with shoplifting and vandalism instead of seasoned criminals. But, Gajeel found it hard to hang up his hat at the end of the day, every minute that went by without him finding whatever scum he was looking for was another minute with them on the streets doing who know what, and how was he supposed to have a good nights sleep knowing that. Sometimes his lack of rest would catch up with him, no matter how much coffee he drank or how cold his shower was he would still end up dozing off at his desk if the report he was reading just happened to be extra boring, or on his lunch break he would go and take a nap in one of the cars, just to be found hours later with a puddle of drool on the seat. Gajeel got lucky, because if Makarov was a hard ass he probably would have been fired or transferred a long time ago for falling asleep on the job, but because he understood that it was because Gajeel was working so hard rather than slacking off, instead of chewing him out when he was a walking zombie, he would just "order" him to lay on the couch in his office and confiscate his workload so he couldn't take it home with him.

Gajeel told himself he was going to hold it together today, at least he stayed up all night for personal gain this time instead of obsessing over some ass hole he had plans on cuffing in the future. Still if he was going to get through today he needed coffee, and a lot of it, soon. Gajeel could only roll his eyes when he walked into his kitchen discovering that it was completely destroyed, he knew his roommate would be walking in the door soon after his shift at the firehouse around the corner, so he knew the person responsible for this was probably sitting in his living room. "Blondie, why is it that you have your own apartment three blocks away, and a rich daddy with a whole mansion somewhere, but, here you are again, in my house, eating up all of my food?" Gajeel could only grit his teeth when the girl in question laughed, it was a conversation they had at least a few times a week. Natsu gave her a key, and she would always come over the night before he came of duty, she would trash his kitchen, eat everything and her and Natsu would make googly eyes at each other until Gajeel practically ran to work. Gajeel tried his best to understand that the two of them were in love, and when his cousin explained to him that the girl he was seeing grew up surrounded by maids and shit who cleaned up after her all the time it made a lot of sense. Gajeel knew the mess would be gone by the time he got home from work, but it still irked his nerves to he his home in such disarray.

"I'm sorry Gajeel! I know I trashed the kitchen again, but I wanted to surprise you guys and make you breakfast." Gajeel immediately had war flashbacks of the bout of food poisoning he got the last time she decided to make them food, even Natsu who could eat just about anything was sick as hell and they were fighting over the closest bathroom for days. Gajeel sighed and looked at the sad excuse of a spread currently sitting on his dining room table, by the teary look in Lucy's eyes he could tell that his face was saying all of the things his mouth wanted to, and there was no way in hell he was eating this. The toast was charred, the eggs looked uncooked, something he assumed was pancakes looked like a clump of dough in the middle of the table. "I know it looks bad... You don't have to eat it... I can order some take out if you want."

Gajeel knew she was trying, and it was an improvement from the time she actually set the kitchen on fire. He didn't know the whole story behind Natsu's girlfriends life, but she grew up having everything done for her and her mom died when she was young, so it was no surprise she couldn't do basic things like cook and clean correctly. Gajeel ruffled her hair, as bad as he felt for making her feel like shit after working so hard, it wasn't going to help her by pretending she did things right and she wasn't going to learn anything like that. "Don't worry, I'll teach ya how to cook before you two get hitched. Can't have you poisoning my cousin for the rest of his life." Him and Natsu had been together forever, they were constantly at each others throats since they were kids, but they were family so Gajeel didn't hesitate to take Lucy under his wing when Natsu introduced her as the girl he wanted to marry.

Gajeel never had thoughts or plans about getting married but he supposed it would be nice, when Natsu started coming home late, and then not at all he started fearing the worse. Gajeel did his best to get his younger cousin out of a shitty neighborhood when they were younger, when Gajeel was eighteen and Natsu was fourteen he went as far as becoming his guardian and he used the money he got monthly for taking care of Natsu on an apartment in a better neighborhood away from all the violence. Seven years later they still lived in the same apartment together, and Gajeel was both relieved and surprised when he found out Natsu was chasing a girl instead of being an idiot. He was happy for him, in a few years he was sure there would be some pink haired ass holes running amok, but Natsu moving on and moving out just reminded Gajeel how alone he was going to be. Him and Natsu had always been together, and now him and his future wife were looking for a new place to live after the wedding.

It gave Gajeel a weird ache in his chest he tried to ignore, Natsu annoyed the living shit out of him, but having the knowledge that he was going to be leaving soon was too much to wrap his head around. The closest thing Gajeel had to a date in the past couple years, was sitting on Youtube and listening to a girl who doesn't even know he exists talk about her life, and it wasn't even a quirky were scared to talk to each other thing like in the movies. He was infatuated with a bonafide rockstar, and as much as he liked to blame his lack of romance on throwing himself into his work, the truth was he didn't really have an interest in any other girl. "Hey Gajeel, one of my friends has been asking about you, you should go out for drinks with her." It was like Lucy could read his mind sometimes, she was obviously in a better mood not that he helped her remake a more edible breakfast, but It seemed to become her goal in life to hook him up with someone before the wedding.

"Not happening." Gajeel didn't believe in going on blind dates, his friend Juvia tried the same shit on him for years, and the girls were either crazy, or looking for a husband or both, and he wasn't going to be dealing with that ever again. Gajeel constantly tried to point out that if you need someone to set you up on a date, their was something wrong with you, and he knew he was included in that category. Lucy went to argue with him like she normally did, but Gajeel figured out a while ago that the quickest way to shut her up is to make her uncomfortable. "Cause you're gonna be real mad at me, if I stick it in her and we don't work out." Lucy looked somewhere between annoyed with him, and offended, but it got her to drop the subject. "I'm just saying, she'll be mad, you'll be mad, all her friends that she's gonna tell I'm a jerk are gonna be mad too, and I don't really want a mob of angry women after me."

"Whatever Lucy, don't listen to staple face, there's no way he has enough game to be sticking anything in anyone." Gajeel couldn't help but laugh at that one, Natsu just happened to walk in at the perfect time to be a hater, or he was trying to hide the fact that women constantly threw themselves at both of them because of their jobs alone. Gajeel found it strange how flirty girls became when you stopped them from being mugged and intimidated their shitty ex boyfriends into leaving them alone. His uniform alone got him more female and sometimes male attention than he would ever need, but people were always looking for the uniform rather than the person. The same thing happened to Natsu all the time too, he was just too stupid to realize it, or he was just playing dumb when girls hit on him and bought him drinks because he was a firefighter. They had a pretty impressive collection of Tupperware because of the amount of cookies they were baked and random food they were brought as a thank you.

"Will you two stop! I don't wanna imagine Gajeel sticking anything, anywhere, on anyone." Gajeel and Natsu both laughed at how red she was getting, Lucy could be a total prude, which Gajeel didn't really understand with how thin these walls were and how her and Natsu went at each other the moment he got home. "Okay, are you guys ten? You're being gross." Gajeel knew right then he should make a beeline for the door, Lucy was giving him those stupid puppy dog eyes she used on Natsu all the time, and he knew she was about to ask him to do something he didn't want to do. "Well, my sisters coming in town for the wedding, and I would really appreciate if you could show her around." Before Gajeel even had the chance to shoot her down Lucy pulled out her best pleases and explanations about how it wasn't a date. "She's my maid of honor, you're the best man, you guys should get to know each other, and I promise she's not crazy or looking for a husband or anything like that. She's just new to the city, and I'm going to be too busy with wedding planning to spend time with her."

Gajeel could hardly believe it himself when the word "fine" came out of his lips, he knew he was probably going to regret it like the many times they invited him out for drinks only to find out he was on a double date and the two of them made it a habit of leaving early. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're my favorite cousin, I love you." Natsu had to help him pry off an overly happy Lucy from around his waist or he was going to be late for work, and probably change his mind because her reaction was a little more than suspicious. Lucy was okay for a spoiled rich girl, he wondered if her sister was gonna be one of those on too good for anything stuck up bitches he constantly heard about, he hoped not, but he was gonna have to deal with whatever was thrown at him when the time came. "Hey Gajeel!" He knew he should have made a run for it when he had the chance, he already had a foot out the door and was almost free when she caught his attention again. The way Lucy was acting he was sure she was going to ask for a kidney next or make some crazy ass demands about where he could take her sister. " Do not! Under any circumstances, try to stick anything, into my little sister!"

"No promises if she's hot." He knew he was probably going to pay for that comment later, but it was worth it to see Lucy's face scrunch up like that.


	3. Chapter 3

7:47 A.M.

There were usually only three type of people who wore sunglasses while they were indoors, blind people, famous people, and ass holes. It was almost funny watching how some people went above and beyond to disguise themselves from their screaming fans and the cutthroat photographers that loved to do whatever it took to get a story. What people didn't realize was that those intricate disguises drew more attention to you, it wasn't normal for people to wear things like big sweaters and hats in extremely warm weather. Even though she was wearing sunglasses indoors herself, she wasn't actually trying to hide herself, just the dark circles under her eyes. The last thing she needed right now was some tabloid telling the world just how shitty she looked. And she was sure they would fail to mention that she was on the back end of a world tour and has barely slept more than four hours in the past few weeks. Tabloids never cared about how much sleep you were getting or how much work you were doing, if you were a woman and you looked less than perfect, they were going to make sure somebody knew about it.

Being a woman in the public eye was hard, even when she was still underage they would pick apart almost everything she was doing. Her wardrobe decisions was always a subject they liked to talk about, even when she made good fashion choices they would throw around words like "cute" and "sweet" just to remind her that no matter how old she was, she still looked childish. Anytime she wore something a little too short or revealing they would question her fathers parenting choices, say she was "out of control" and compare her to a little girl playing dress up in her big sisters clothes. It was infuriating, and there was no way to win, she stopped trying to please magazines a long time ago and things just seemed to get worse after her eighteenth birthday. Levy almost got whiplash the first time she saw a headline describing her as "sexy," she literally didn't change anything about her appearance, but the moment she went from "jail bait" to a legal adult peoples minds went straight to the gutter and stayed there. Over night she went from being the cute little singer with the big voice, to being the blue haired Vixen of Shadow Gear and two years later she was still adjusting to the new found attention.

She was starting the miss the days of being called sweet and innocent even if she didn't enjoy being called childish, being over sexualized was even worse. She had to start wearing shorts under her dresses and being more careful of how she dressed once she realized there was a bounty out for a picture of her naked. A week after her eighteenth birthday someone posted a picture of her panties online and her father was less than pleased with her little wardrobe malfunction. More than one adult magazine offered her a ridiculous amount of money to pose nude for them, and so far she refused them all. She couldn't imagine putting herself out there like that for the whole world to see, but part of her wanted to do it just to prove she could. The paparazzi were still hungry for another panty shot or a nip slip, and she wondered if she actually did it in a more professional setting maybe people would stop foaming at the mouth about it. It was frustrating that people seemed to care less about her singing, and more about how she looked doing it.

It almost didn't matter that she had a successful music career, or that as of last week she completely sold out her world tour, if she didn't look fuckable while she was doing it. It didn't matter how well she was doing, or how hard she worked. It was a hell of a double standard, it wasn't fair but it was a reality that men were rated solely on their talent, while women had to worry about everything they did. Men could roll out of bed and run someone over and still be praised on how great they were, women had to wear the right clothes, date the right person, be beautiful, wear make up but not too much and have talent on top of it and still weren't recognized the way they should. Even her band mates caught a lot less slack for their bad behavior than she did when she wore anything less than flattering. She never brought it up to them because it wasn't their fault she was always judged so harshly, but it still annoyed her when they didn't understand why it took her so much longer to get ready for everything. Even when they did things as a band, she was the one people were paying attention to, she was the one who the world was watching.

* * *

Speaking of being watched, she knew her glasses were drawing attention to her, almost every person she walked past would look up in curiosity. People would either give her a strange look for wearing something so unnecessary indoors, or try to see what she was hiding behind them. Levy liked to call this hiding in plain sight, she knew she was far less recognizable without the rest of her band, and people tended to ignore her more if they just thought she was just some girl imitation her own style. People didn't think someone as well known as her would be walking through a public place like this so freely, despite her fathers protests she didn't even bring a bodyguard with her. Bodyguards were another big obvious celebrity flag, and the more you looked like just another person, the easier it was to blend in.

People didn't think someone as well known as her would be walking through a public place like this so freely. Even if people did recognize her, it was rare that they actually approached her because they didn't want to embarrass themselves if they were wrong, and didn't want to waste their time talking to a look-alike. She didn't always do it on purpose, but she realized it worked pretty well when she was on tour and ended up in places like airports and malls all over the world. But in never worked in places like downtown L.A. where celebrities were crawling and the paparazzi got in the face of anyone they thought were worth the time. It would probably hurt the boys feeling if she admitted that she preferred traveling without them, when she told them to take their flight home a day earlier without her she had to convince them that it was because she was worried about them and wanted them to get their rest. Truthfully she did have a few things to wrap up in London before she came back to the states, but being stuck on a twelve hour flight with the three of them would have just been painful. She already saw an article online talking about how Shadow Gear was spotted without their lead singer, and now their were rumors floating around about her leaving the band. She was sure to deny the story on her social media but it was popping up faster than she could shut them down and Levy just knew she was going to get that question a lot in her upcoming interviews.

Tabloids and the paparazzi were a constant pain in her side, and sometimes she wished she would have gone through the trouble of putting on some clever disguise, but just wearing a pair of sunglasses she picked up in the airport gift shop would have honestly been a pretty shitty one. With her short stature and vibrant blue locks people saw her coming from a mile away. Ar least a few times a week she would get someone who would randomly stop her and try to parent her about her life choices. They would say things like how her parents should be ashamed of her and themselves for letting someone as young as her ruin her hair by dying it such an outrageous color. Their mouths usually hung open when she would correct them and tell them that she may be young, but she was actually twenty and old enough to make her own decisions about her hair. They never believed her when she told them that the color was natural, and honestly her and her parents choices were none of their concern. Levy was all for being kind to people and respecting her elders, but being old didn't give you a free pass to step over boundaries and some people only understood being told to fuck off, she just always found a way to do it nicely.

She could feel the eyes on her now, in the time it was going to take to her to retrieve her many bags from baggage claim she was sure that someone was going to come up to her and strike up a conversation. If they weren't going to comment on the unusual color of her hair, it was definitely going to be a question about one of the tattoo's she had on each thigh that her shorts failed to cover. Whenever she left one of her pieces visible it was guaranteed that someone was going to come talk to her about them. In a few less than comfortable instances, people actually went as far as touching one without her permission. She had to tell herself that the person wasn't actually a pervert, but just curious about her ink, but she wasn't always convinced that curiosity was a good enough reason to be rubbing your hand on a strangers thigh.

Despite the occasional overly touchy person she didn't mind the attention they brought her, they were always a good conversation starter . Some people would share tattoo stories of their own, and would make a would make time fly by whenever she was stuck flying alone. Some people were a little less than impressed with her decision to permanently display artwork on her skin, but it didn't matter to her if people's questions were out of admiration, curiosity, or disgust as long as they were respectful about it. Levy learned the hard way not to mention the other artwork she had hidden on her skin, unless she just felt like lifting up her shirt and giving the whole world a hell of a view to show off the rib pieces that started her collection of ink she started two years earlier. Her current collection stopped at the tattoo on her left thigh, it was only a few months old and she was doing her best to keep her promise to her father not to get anything she couldn't hide easily.

* * *

"Hey... Um, excuse me... Are you Levy Gear? " She almost didn't realize someone was speaking to her, if it wasn't for the shadow he was casting over her, she probably wouldn't have noticed him in the first place with how softly he was speaking. She abandoned her quest for the rest of her bags and stood at her full height to face the person who was trying to talk to her, even though she could tell he was a teen at the oldest she still only came up to his chin. She recognized the look of wonder in his eyes, around the time her music started to become popular she noticed that people tended to look at her like she was a unicorn or some other mythical creature you shouldn't be seeing in real life. She gave him her best smile and pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head deciding it would be rude to talk to someone while she was hiding behind her shades. It was pretty obvious from the starry look in his eyes that he was a fan of hers, and no matter how tired she was she always took the time to talk to anyone who actually approached her, even if the most of the conversation ended up being an awkward silence.

"Yeah that's me, what's up?" No matter how famous she got, she didn't think she would ever get used to people getting starstruck on her. They always did the same thing, they stared at her with an open mouth, but they never usually got the words out right away. Some people came out of it on their own and apologized and were embarrassed about their strange behavior, but other people just needed a little push. "Well, since you know my name, its only fair that you tell me yours." Asking their name usually shifted people back in gear, occasionally she was met with more silence, or um's while they tried to remember their own name. She always tried to be patient when it came to her fans, but if the gawking and silence exceeded more than five minutes, she usually told them how nice it was meeting them and said her goodbyes.

"Romeo! I'm... My names Romeo" Levy was glad she finally got something out of him, but he seemed to clam back up just as quickly as he did the first time. He seemed like a really nice kid, just on the shy side which she could understand she was painfully shy as a kid too. It wasn't until she got famous did she learn how to open up more and she was determined to have at least some sort of conversation with Romeo, no matter how one sided.

"Romeo huh? Well Romeo be sure to stay away from any girls with a name like Juliet. Or Julie honestly, Julia too, you should probably just avoid anybody who's name starts with a J. I know everyone likes to pretend like there was something romantic about that story. But really it was just two hormonally dramatic teens and spoiler alert it ended really. You seem like a really nice person Romeo and I really don't want to hear about you caught up in a double suicide." No matter how awkward a silence was she could probably ramble on about books forever. Just when she was about ready to offer to take a picture with him and say her goodbyes another person joined the conversation.

"Romeo sweetie, there you are! Don't wander off like that I was looking every where for you." She could tell by the fact that they shared the same dark purple hair that they were related to each other, and by the way she was scolding him that this was probably the boys mother. After giving poor Romeo an earful the woman finally acknowledged her, and by the way she looked her up and down she kind of wished she would have sneaked off while Romeo was getting chewed out. "Who's this? Do you know her from somewhere? Is she your friend?" Levy didn't know what she did to deserve the current stare down she was getting, but she knew she was going to have to introduce herself with how mute Romeo had been all this time.

"Mom you are so embarrassing! You should know who this is, this is Levy Gear!" Romeos mom gave him a strange look and looked at Levy for help as to why she was supposed to recognize her and Levy couldn't help but laugh. "You know from Shadow Gear! The band I'm always talking about, there's Levy Gear, Loke Gear, Jet Gear and Droy Gear. You were supposed to buy me tickets for my birthday... But you waited too long and the concert sold out. You literally don't know anything about me, dad knows who she is, he would have got the tickets in time, but you promised. Why do you even want me to spend the summer with you?" Levy really wished she would have escaped a long time ago, she didn't know who she felt more bad for, Romeo and his teenage meltdown or his mothers who face dropped the minute he mentioned a broken promise. Deciding she had her fair share of awkward silences today she decided to break this one with a solution to both of their problems.

"Hey Romeo how about we make a deal, all my bags have LMH on the front, if you help me grab the rest of them I'll give you tickets to whatever show you want. And cut your mom some slack concerts are expensive and all of them out here sold out pretty fast."

* * *

Two selfies and six bags later she was finally ready to go, she was just hoping her ride wasn't late for once. "That was almost painful to watch." Levy didn't even have to look up to know who slung their arm around her shoulder. His flirtatious was the main reason a lot of people thought they were an item rather than just friends and band mates. Hearing girls scream how much they loved Loke over the years made her call him by his real name just to avoid being roped in with his many fan girls.

"Leo when did you get here?" The fact they were wearing matching shades didn't help with the romantic rumors that were flying around, but Leo was another master at hiding in plain sight even though girls still threw themselves at him whenever he walked by. "Are those my sunglasses? I've been looking everywhere for those you jerk."

"Around the time that kids mom hugged you and asked you to take a picture with her." Levy noticed that he completely ignored her second question but the guilty look on his face was proof enough that he had been going through her things again. "I found them in my luggage, must have took them by accident." Levy wasn't buying his lie, but there was no reason to fight him about it when she bought a new pair before her flight and they were currently gracing her nose at the moment. She gave herself a mental reminder to go search through Leo's room when she had the chance.

"She literally didn't know who I was five minutes ago, but I'm sure she would have warmed up faster to you since you're "Oh, so charming." at least that's what the magazines say." Levy's use of air quotes was enough to remind him that she didn't agree with the way magazines fawned all over him. Loke was probably more popular than her when it came to their female fan base, Levy had received more than one death threat when it came to him and people didn't seem to understand that girls and boys can be friends and work together with anything being romantic. Some people just assumed she was having some kind of weird foursome with Leo, Jet and Droy, but it both a written and unwritten rule that nothing romantic to happen between any of them for the good of the band.

"I do have a thing for moms." Levy didn't want to know if he was joking or not when it came to things like this, but she was sure if he was actually interested he would have chased Romeo and Enno down and gave her a personal invite to a show. It wouldn't be the first time he left her to load her bags into the car by herself, but he seemed more interested in getting back to their hotel and going back to sleep soon. She noticed he had the same dark circles under his eyes that she had, he was just the unlucky one who drew the short stick and had to pick her up first thing in the morning. She was sure Jet and Droy were still fast asleep, with the eight hour difference between the two cities, she knew it was going to take them a few days to adjust to a new schedule.

"Leo, you have a thing for everyone." All she got in return was a laugh before they both hopped in his car hoping to beat the L.A traffic.


	4. Chapter 4

10:47 PM

Gajeel didn't know who he was more pissed at right now, himself for actually believing that his "friend" Laxus really just wanted to meet up for drinks. Or the same ass hole friend for setting him up on a blind date and lying to him to actually get him to show up. In Laxus's defense he was actually there, sitting at the bar, flirting with the same barmaid he swore he wasn't dating and ignoring all the dirty looks Gajeel had been shooting towards him ever since some strange girl hooked herself on his arm and told him just how happy she was to finally meet him. He would expect this kind of thing from Juvia, she was always trying to hook him up with some girl she thought was perfect for him or something. Ever since Gajeel introduced her to Gray and they started dating, Juvia felt like she owed him a girlfriend and no matter how many times Gajeel told her to knock it off she made it her goal in life to make sure he didn't "die alone." Yeah she could be pretty dramatic but he knew she meant well, but she even recruited his cousins girlfriend Lucy in on her game and the two of them had been trying their damnedest to make sure he had a date for the wedding. If he wanted one or not. Laxus wasn't one to intervene in Gajeel's romantic escapades, they only time he mentioned anything was when Gajeel was ignoring the fact a girl was bat shit crazy or if Gajeel was potentially seeing someone Laxus dated in the past. Sometimes Gajeel chose to ignore these things, other times he used it as a perfect excuse to break things off, either way it wasn't like Laxus to set him up with someone like this, which meant Juvia and Lucy finally wore him down and recruited him into this mess.

Blind dates in general were always kind of awkward, but surprise blind dates were in a league of its own. Gajeel was already on his third mug of beer and the damn girl hadn't stopped talking since they sat down. He didn't fight her when she lead him to a booth in the back, the last thing he needed was someone he knew joining in on the fun and telling his surprise date embarrassing stories or something like that. To some people that thought would seem paranoid, but with a relative like Natsu (Who's done that exact thing three times this year.) you would be surprised what kind of shit he would bring up just to annoy Gajeel. If that wasn't bad enough Laxus made it a bad habit of coming over and flirting with his dates, which if Gajeel wasn't interested that was fine, but Laxus did it mostly for the bragging rights of pulling girl from right under Gajeel's nose. Gajeel "accidentally" stole one of Laxus's girlfriends once in high school and the bastard was still trying to get revenge, but Gajeel could already tell that this wasn't one of those situations. He could almost feel Laxus laughing at the look on his face, to most people it always seemed like Gajeel was scowling or in a bad mood, but this was one of the few times he was actually internally screaming.

All he wanted to do was make a beeline for the door! He gave up binge watching some show he liked and drinking in his boxers for Laxus and this is how the fucker repaid him. The only reason he was still sitting here was because he knew it wasn't the poor girls fault that he was tricked into doing this, women were emotional creatures, and he knew there was no way he could just up and leave without saying anything. Even explaining to her that this whole meeting was a mistake and that he wasn't interested would just hurt her feelings and make him out to be a total jerk. Even though she wouldn't shut up, she was cute, so there was that. Having something pretty to look at through dinner made things slightly less painful, but Laxus was still going to pay for this kind of betrayal, and Gajeel wasn't leaving his house anymore unless he absolutely had to.

Gajeel was trying his best to be a somewhat decent date, so he followed all the steps his father taught him when he was younger, it was pretty idiot proof, it worked when he was a teenager and it still did a pretty good job of covering all the bases. It helped him avoid awkward silences which he knew wasn't going to be a problem with this girl, and it stopped him from ending up with drinks in his face. The first thing you do is introduce yourself, but the girl already seemed to know who he was. Five minutes in and she was already talking about sending him a friend request on Facebook later, but her phone was dead so she couldn't do it right now. You try to smile, but don't force it because it comes across creepy instead of charming and you don't want your date running off before you've had the chance to get to know each other. And if you come off as a creep to one girl, the first thing she's going to do is tell all her friends, and being known as the creepy guy is a hell of a title to shake. Always compliment something your date is wearing, but never their appearance because that makes you seem shallow and you never want to mention something someone might be insecure about. Pay attention to whatever story their telling, doesn't matter how boring or how stupid you think it is because they might bring it up later and you don't want to look like an ass for not getting some joke you would get if you were paying attention.

The more talking your date does, the less you have to do, so ask questions when its appropriate to keep them talking and to show that you're paying attention, but try to avoid stupid questions because then you just look like an idiot. Asking questions was a good way to show them that you're interested it what they're saying, and in his experience girls liked to be listened to. Always remember when your date mentions something more than once, because it usually means its important to them, and you don't want to mention something like spiders when a girl says she hates spider, or order something like fish when she has an allergy. Don't talk about your ex lovers and don't ask about any of hers, if she brings them up more than once she's not over them or she's looking for a replacement and either thing has its own problems. And always, ALWAYS! Pay. It doesn't matter if the girl ordered caviar and a damn lobster, you will always look like a cheap piece of shit if you try to split the bill. The only bright side to this situation was that he heard the opening cords to one of his favorite songs. Guilty by Levy before she joined Shadow Gear, when he found out she was a solo artist before joining the band he looked up all her old music and downloaded it to his phone and it was some of his favorite. They didn't play it on the radio as often as her Shadow Gear work, but he heard that she still performed it in concert.

"Hey this sounds like that Shadow Gear chick." Okay him and this girl were going to get along just fine if she was a fan of his favorite band. Gajeel always downplayed the fact the he was a total fanboy when it came to Levy, but if she was excited too things were about to take a turn for the better. "My room mate is like in love with their guitarist so she's always playing their music." Okay Gajeel was definitely going to be best friends with her room mate. Sometimes Gajeel would listen to the same album for days before he switched it out for another and he knew it drove his partner insane. But he was positive that Lily could sing all the songs word for word by now. " I don't know why everyone is so obsessed with the singer though. She's not that great." Say what now? Gajeel had to hold back his inner fan boy, because he was two minutes away from telling this chick to go fuck herself. "Yeah she can sing and all, but a lot of people can. And what's with the blue hair and tattoos? She looks like one of those people who work at that really weird black store in the mall." Gajeel kind of wished he could arrest people for having a bad taste in music, he had to shift the conversation to something else because if this was going to keep shit talking his future wife they were going to have problems.

As much as Gajeel didn't want to be on this date, he couldn't say that it was going completely disastrous besides the poor girls shitty taste in music. That is unless she found out the one little detail that would completely ruin the night and make him look like the biggest jerk ever it came to light. What the fuck was her NAME? He didn't know if he just didn't catch it, or if she just never said it at all. For some reason was he just supposed to know? Had Laxus mentioned her before and he just brushed him off? The hell if he knew, and at this point in the game there was no smooth way to ask her what her name was. Finding some bull shit reason to ask her to spell it would be too obvious, what if she had a simple name? He would look like an idiot asking her to spell something like Ann or May or some easy shit like that. Maybe it would be a little less obvious if he gave her a nickname or something, but what was he supposed to call her? Blondie? No, he called Lucy that. Babe? No, he wasn't some frat boy ass hole. Sweetheart? No, he wasn't some dirty old man! Giving her a nickname that wasn't creepy was almost as hard as pulling her real name out of thin air. He could always ask Laxus, but he didn't want to look like a jerk for pulling out his phone in the middle of a date. He couldn't ask her to see her I.D without looking like a crazy stalker who was trying to figure out where she lived or something. He honestly felt like shit for not knowing, but he had a great memory and he remembered all the other stuff she said tonight, so there was no way in hell she verbally told him her name and he was just careless and just forgot.

Gajeel scanned his brain again looking for clues, but there was nothing she said that came close to an introduction that included her name. He knew she was the youngest of three, she mentioned having a brother once and a sister twice. Gajeel never caught her age but he knew she was younger than him because she mentioned she was still in college and was complaining about how cramped it was living in a dorm. She loved animals and was studying to be a Vet, but she didn't have any pets at the moment because her school didn't allow them on campus and she was planning on protesting such a thing when school started back up in the fall. She went to school out of state and was staying with her sister for the summer, and her sister was dating Laxus so that's how they knew each other. Wait... Her sister was dating Laxus? Her sister who was bar-tending? Now that he thought about it they did look alike and he would probably look less like a jerk asking Mira what her little sisters name was, instead of asking the girl herself. He would just go get them some drinks and ask then, a victim-less crime, hopefully Mira would spare her sisters feelings and not tell her about it later, but it was a risk he was willing to take. "It's crowded as shit in here, and our waiter's taking his damn time. How about I go get us some drinks at the bar?"

Hell yeah! That was almost smooth and Gajeel knew he was going to get away with this, and maybe a drink or two would make him less tense about this whole situation. He'd just eat some greasy food later to soak up the booze or make Laxus drive him home as punishment. He knew better than to order messy food in front of his date, and the fact she was a vegan or some shit limited his options in the first place. As much as he wanted a steak the size of his head, he knew his date would be less than happy with his choice so he ended up ordering fries because it was the only safe thing he could eat and just told her he wasn't really hungry. His date had been happily nibbling on her salad since it first came if he could even call that pile of lettuce a salad. He was confused to how terrible the thing tasted since she ordered it without the dressing and cheese because there was too many calories or some chick shit he didn't get. "Don't worry about me silly, I'm fine with water, and I can't drink anyway I'm underage." Her grabbing his hand stopped him from escaping and using a lame excuse like having to use the bathroom would be too obvious that he was trying to get away from her. It made him feel worse that she was obviously a lot more into him than he was into her. The way she was twirling her hair around her finger and rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand was a given. But the loving look she was giving him right now was not just creeping him out, it was pretty obvious that she was going to be expecting a second date. "I talked about me all night Gajeel, how about you tell me something about you? You're a cop right, that has to be exciting. Laxus says you work together a lot, does that mean you guys are like partners?"

Gajeel hated talking about himself, and being a cop made him paranoid about releasing too much information, but she was just a girl and the worst thing she could probably do is show up at his house uninvited or some other annoying shit. "Nah, not partners. But, were on the same team though." Gajeel slid back into the booth and decided to give her what she wanted to a point, he would tell her about work, but he wasn't going to bring up anything personal unless she directly asked. "My partners name is Lily, Laxus thinks he's a big shot he likes to work by himself." Gajeel almost laughed when her face dropped when he mentioned his partner Lily, his name was deceiving, most people though of a dainty little girl not an almost seven foot tall beast of a man. He really couldn't hide his amusement when his date asked him if he thought Lily was pretty, he had known this girl less than a few hours and she was already acting jealous and if that was one hell of a red flag. "Lily's a guy and he's married with kids, doesn't really matter if I think he's cute or not. Plus, he's not really my type." His date seemed embarrassed when he set her straight, he knew she had to be young by the way she was acting when she thought he mentioned another girl. Maybe if he just started asking her random questions it'll be less obvious when she asked about her name. "You said you can't drink, if you don't mind me asking, just how old are you anyway?"

She seemed to be more relaxed again when he shifted the focus back to her and she just seemed to light up at him having some sort of interest in her. "I just turned nineteen a few months ago, and I'm super excited now, I can drive up to Canada and drink if I want to." Great. If he touched her, he would be robbing the damn cradle, Gajeel was at least seven years older than this girl. What the hell did Laxus think they were going to have in common? He was mentally preparing the list of "fuck you's" he would being be giving Laxus later, and trying to find the best way to let this girl down easy without hurting her feelings too bad. "You know Gajeel, I'm really glad you finally agreed to go on a date with me. I know its kind of creepy, but I saw pictures of you from a party and I've been bugging Laxus about it for months, but he always said you were busy. I thought you just didn't like me, I'm glad you changed your mind and gave me a chance. I think you're really sweet."

That head tilt and that smile said more about her intentions than her words ever could, sometimes he hated being able to read people. At work it was almost like a super power and helped him figure out who was lying and what people's real intentions were. But, when it came to every day situations sometimes ignorance was bliss. All of her body language told him let him know that this poor girl had the hots for him, and it made him feel even worse about not knowing her damn name. Yeah, she was pretty and all, but she either a badge bunny or was obviously a really bad judge of character. She was looking at him through rose colored lenses and it was something girls did to him all the time, in the end things always ended the same way. Someone's feelings always got hurt, they would give up on him after so many cancelled dates, and missed phone calls when they realized that his work would always come first. When he showed no interest in wanting to meet their parents or hang out with their friends, of moving in together or taking the next step in their relationship when all he had to offer was something physical. They never believed him, not until it was too late, until they let themselves get attached to him and they got their hearts broken.

Gajeel was tired of being the bad guy, of hurting people. It was easy to say that he just dated crazy girls, but the one thing these girls had in common was him and he would be have to be blind to believe it was everyone else's fault and not his. He couldn't keep count of the number of times one of these heartbroken girls keyed his car, or slashed his tired in a fit of rage. Apparently if you're mad enough, you just forget the person your trying to get back at is a cop. He never pressed charges against any of them, but a few of them were arrested, when you're dumb enough to vandalize a cops car, right outside the precinct in broad day light you're asking to be arrested. It was a running joke for a while, they always had bets on when was the next time a girl would come and throw a brick through one of his windows or be caught spray painting "dick" on his car. That's why he just stopped dating, he stopped going out for drinks, he stopped meeting up for coffee and he sure as hell stopped just meeting up with a group of friends. It all ended the same, and the one thing worse than a girl hating you for breaking her heart, was her group of friends being equally mad because they saw some spark that just wasn't there. Not to mention his car insurance premiums were through the roof for a long time.

Gajeel wanted to do the right thing and spare this girls feelings before it was too late, but what the hell was he supposed to say to say to her? "I didn't know you existed until a few hours ago and had no idea that you've been pining over me for months." The usual ass hole answer of "It's not you It's me." He didn't know if Laxus mentioned her before and he just ignored him? Did he agree to this date to get Laxus out of his face and just not remember? This was the first time ever Gajeel wanted one of his dates friends to show up and greet her just so he would know what her name was. How the hell was he supposed to let her down lightly if he didn't know what to call her? "Hey Gajeel, I know this whole thing feels really weird and I don't usually do stuff like this. But, I like you a lot, and I think you're really attractive. I'm not really looking for anything serious, or like a relationship since I'm only here until the end of the month. But I think we can have a lot of fun together, and I know I would regret it later if you feel the same way and I was too scared to try. So, meet me in the men's room in five?"

What the fuck? Did she just? Great it was bad enough he had to come on this stupid date but now he was going to have to mentor this poor girl and tell her how fucking stupid it was to try to pick up stranger in a bar. Didn't she know there were crazy people out there? He couldn't even count the number of case files they had for missing girls her age who were kidnapped and sold or assaulted and murdered or shit like that because they were too trusting. He waited and made sure that no one was watching him when he followed her too the bathroom, he was going to tell her how stupid she was to be going into a secluded place with someone she didn't know and offer her a ride home. "Look I'm flattered and all, but its getting late and I think we should call it a night. I'll give you a ride home." Gajeel tried, he really tried to do the right thing, he even told himself how disgusting a men's bar bathroom was and that he was probably going to catch something from just standing there. He tried to give himself the excuse was that she was pretty, but they all were and he usually didn't have a problem turning them down. He even tried to use the excuse that it was because he was lonely, but being lonely didn't excuse the fact that he knew that this was wrong. But, her lips on his made it harder and harder to think rationally. He had to tell himself that, she was stupid, seven years younger than him and he didn't know her name and that little reminder gave him the will power to push her away a second time. He could still come back from this, it wasn't his first time making out with a stranger in a bar but he was usually more than three beers in before he did some shit like this. "I think we should stop."

Gajeel didn't usually have to reject a girl a third time, the first time they thought he was just being a gentleman but the second time they usually got the point. What he wasn't expecting was this girl to be so persistent, or her hands on his belt buckle. "I don't think your body agrees with you." Shit. Betrayed by the boner, sometimes he wondered if girls knew dick's had a mind of their own and sometimes just stretched out just because they wanted to. Maybe they would take it as less of a compliment, but nothing he said seemed to phase her. "You don't have to worry about anything Gajeel, I'll take care of you." Okay there was no way he could pass this off as a random boner, because that comment went straight to his dick. He was going to hate himself in the morning for this, and probably have to deal with a very angry Mira, but what was he supposed to say? "Hey, get that out of your mouth?" The real excuse he was going to give himself later, was that its been a really long time and he didn't have the will power to tell her no again. Getting acquainted with yourself wasn't even close to the same thing as someone else touching you, and she had no problem melting him into pieces in a matter of minutes. She looked like an innocent girl, but this definitely wasn't her first time, he could feel himself starting to lose his composure and she seemed to know it before he even said anything. Now it was common courtesy to let the other person know before things were coming to an end, a simple warning was fine. Not everyone liked surprises but she just seemed to get even more aggressive.

"Ah, Shit. Levy."


	5. Chapter 5

1:29 PM

Viewer count: 99,896 and counting

Ten thousand people online? Levy was trying to convince herself this was a situation where the term "the more the merrier" applied, but she knew this amount of people already logged in to watch her live stream meant that it was going to be particularly hectic. It wasn't exactly rare for one of her videos to get that many views, some of her videos made it all the way up to a million views from people watching the recordings over time, but this was the first time she would have ten thousand live viewers that she was going to be interacting with. She hadn't even said anything yet, all her fans could see at the moment was a black screen counting down the final seconds until 1:30 PM. She could remember a time when the amount of people who bothered to watch her weekly videos was just around a thousand, in the hundreds, even in the teens. She could remember when the only person who would listen to her sing was her older sister over Skype on the weekends that they weren't together. The sad thing was that when her only fans were her sister, and a handful of her friends she felt was less alone than she did right now.

Ten thousand people logged in for what? To ask her questions about her life? To watch her sing one of the songs acoustically that she didn't perform in concert anymore? A lot of people didn't even say anything, they just sat there and listened to her ramble on about her life for ten minutes once a week. Levy could remember how excited she was the first time her viewer count made it to twenty thousand, only about three thousand people watched her stream live, but overnight an insane amount of people watched the recording. It was right after she was announced as the new lead singer of Shadow Gear and they had an album coming out soon, she used to think twenty thousand was a lot of people until she started she started selling out arenas larger than that. Their overseas shows always sold out in hours, and their american ones were a lot more frequent so they usually sold out in less than a day. In the last year her excitement started fading, Shadow Gear was always expected to sell out with the way their fan base had grown. When did ten thousand live viewers become less exciting than a thousand, and when did sold out arenas become the norm?

"Hi everyone! Welcome back if you've been here before, and if this is your first time joining us today, I am Levy Gear, I make music for a living, and it is very nice to meet you all." She'd been using that same intro for years, the only change to it was the addition to the word "gear" after her name, she slipped and said it for the first time in a video one week before being announced as the replacement singer for shadow gear after the departure of the last singer. A lot of her viewers caught it right away and her YouTube channel blew up with questions and comments, but back then she was still relatively unknown, so a lot of people didn't believe it and harassed her about lying. "I'm so sorry it's been so long everyone, the boys and I just got back to the states from the European leg of our world tour, and it's been a long month ,but we're happy to be home." Levy was trying her best to sound happy and energetic, but the sleep deprivation was starting to kick in, she only slept a few hours before she woke up with enough time to brush her teeth and hair so she wouldn't look like a complete zombie in screen.

"If you guys just came here to hear me sing, that's usually how I wrap up my videos so it's the last thing I do before we have to say goodbye. Last time you guys voted on it and the song that won is called "bound to happen" if you didn't follow my solo career that's fine, it's the first song I ever wrote about lost love, and... it's about what you would expect from a very emotional fifteen year old me getting her heartbroken. Other than that I answer as many questions as you guys have within reason, I won't answer anything that may be offensive, inappropriate or triggering to anyone, so be nice to each other. If I don't get to your question today, I'm very sorry but you can always send me a direct message and I will do my best to get to it, so that's enough of the rules, let's get started!"

It never seemed to fail, Levy tried her best not to roll her every time she got the same three questions, "Are you dating anyone? Who are you dating?" And last but not least,"Are you and Loke dating each other?" Every live stream she would always get at least a few dozen people flooding her feed with questions about her love life. For the most part she ignored it, she would address it once and then she would ignore all other questions about it. Some people were a little more aggressive in their quest for a confirmation of "Lovy" which was the unofficial couple name for herself and Leo, and people always declared they were going to find out the truth or that they had evidence that they were really together. On the other side of the fence, there was the Leo fangirls that would probably skin her alive if she and Loke ever got together. Screams of "Stay away from Loke." "He's mine." followed by the many insulting reasons why they thought Leo would never want to date a girl like her.

"Sorry to disappoint anyone who was hoping it was true, but me and Leo are just good friends and bandmates. Me and they guys are just like one big happy family, and I'm lucky enough to be the little sister to three awesome older brothers." It didn't matter how many times she said it, Leo and her would never date each other and it had nothing to do with her being "ugly" or "flat chested" or "A blue haired whore" as mentioned by some of the people below. Earlier in her career the name calling used to bother her to the point of tears, but over the years she learned it was better to ignore it than let somebody she doesn't even know hurt her feelings. "Sorry guys there's no secret relationships going on anywhere. I haven't been in serious relationship in years. Sarusuke is happily married and he has a three year old little girl, Leo dates everyone, and Droy's a little more private with his love life so if he was dating anyone I probably wouldn't even know until he was married.

The questions about her love life didn't seem to slow down and she was honestly getting pretty bored with it, she thought about just cutting the session short and singing two songs to fill up the time slot. It was hard to just up and change the subject without people accusing her of hiding something, everyone could see the questions flying her way, and even though it was pretty hard to keep up, if she just made one up to answer someone would probably call her out on it. Finally there was a question that didn't involve Leo, but it still unfortunately was another one about her love life, "Would you ever consider dating a fan?" It wasn't exactly a hard question, but she had to be careful about how she answered it. Sure it was completely possible for her to date one of her fans, she didn't exactly want to go out with someone who hated her music. But, the few blind dates and tinder meet ups she had with super fans was a little unsettling. When she was on a date with one guy he was quiet the entire time and when he finally spoke up to say something it was to ask her for a lock of her hair for his shrine... Which he then showed her pictures of…

One guy decided him going on a date with her was a good way to ask her to perform his own private concert, they literally didn't talk about anything, and before she could get a word out, he was asking her to sing another song for him acoustically. She should have known this date was going to get weird when he showed up with a guitar case, about an hour into this she was just ready to go home, but she played a few more songs for him before making up an excuse and spent the rest of her night downing much too expensive wine and room service desserts. Her last experience was maybe a year ago, she went on a couple dates with a really nice girl, but after the third one she realized just how hard it was to get to know someone who already knew everything about you. All she knew about this girl was maybe her name, and that she had a really good memory. But the girl could quote back everything Levy had ever said in an interview. From her favorite color, to her favorite food to the last book she read, to her top ten most embarrassing moments in order. They parted on good terms, but that pretty much summed up how all of her dating experiences go.

"I'm not against dating anyone who is a fan of mine, but that wouldn't really be a deciding factor if I wanted to take a chance on someone or not. If they are a fan that would be nice, but if they aren't that's okay too. I would just like to be with someone I get along with." "Okay guys, were running a little short on time so I'm going to sing bound to happen for you and then I'll see you same time same place next week. So here goes."

* * *

7:05 AM

How the hell was it possible for somebody to look so cute when they were annoyed? She didn't start off like that, about halfway through the videos he could see her mood change. But he was good at reading people, and it was subtle, she went from excited, to annoyed to bored in a matter of minutes from her so called fans insulting her and bombarding her with questions about her love life. It was a waste, such a waste of time to just keep asking her the same shit week to week, he thought about all the questions he would ask her if ever got the chance, if he ever had the guts. He usually never made it to any of the live versions of her videos, but the few times he did he couldn't bring himself to type anything in the chat bar. He knew the chances of her actually seeing it was slim, and it would have just ended in disappointment and embarrassment that he put himself out there for a celebrity that didn't even know he exists. Before she came along he didn't really understand the point of having a crush on a famous person, or the light amount of acceptable stalking that went along with obsessing over someone who was in the public eye.

Gajeel knew he was worse than one of those preteen girls, they usually grew out of their celebrity obsessions, he was damn near thirty about to pitch a tent over a cute girl sitting on her bed in an oversized t shirt he wished was his. He loved the way she always pulled her hair out of her place when she played, usually she would pull into a bun or a ponytail right before she pulled her guitar in her lap and strummed her way into his heart. But this time it was in twin buns on the top of her head, her blue hair vibrant as always and he couldn't stop thinking about what it would feel like to run his fingers through it when he kissed her. More like if, like that would ever happen. Gajeel did his best to push all his creepy thoughts aside and take a cooler than usual shower and get ready for the day. He still had about a month before he could see her in person, and the thought alone terrified him. He knew he was probably put his foot in his mouth or freeze up, or scare her into getting a restraining order against him. Gajeel wasn't afraid of anything, but something about this girl made him want to meet her just to break whatever spell she had over him. Maybe in person she was secretly mean, or spoiled, or bratty the way a lot of famous people are. That would definitely throw a wrench in his affection towards her, or maybe she was just as perfect as she seemed. Either way he needed to find out for sure so he could start making moves to get over her.

"Oh my god Gajeel?! What happened to your face?" Fuck! They were home, of course they were. The one morning he really wanted to be left alone, Natsu and Lucy were already sitting at the table eating breakfast. He appreciated that they saved him some, but it was bad enough that he was going to have to come up with a shitty excuse for the shiner he had by the time he got to work, but there two being here meant he was going to have to move up his shitty excuse timeline. Natsu's woman didn't even live far from here, so Gajeel didn't understand why the two of them chose to spend all of their time annoying the hell out of him here. He already knew exactly how this was going to go, he was going to try and brush it off and tell his cousins future wife that it wasn't a big deal and not to worry. Gajeel already knew she was going to do the opposite of what he said and make a way bigger deal our of it than it actually was. Lucy was going to try to baby him and shit like she was always doing to Natsu every time he came home with a scrape or a bruise.

Gajeel knew he was going to lose his temper and hurt her feelings by telling her to leave him alone or fuck off or something. Lucy was gonna get mad and cry about it to Natsu and try to make Natsu talk to him. Natsu was probably gonna call him an ass hole or something and then go comfort his little girlfriend with his dick, and Gajeel was going to be stuck suffering through his morning routine pretending like he couldn't hear the two of them going at it through extremely thin walls. It was an endless cycle with the three of them, he knew Lucy meant well but she was always a little too smothering and if he let things play out the way they usually did he would be spending the rest of the day being eaten up by the guilt of hurting two girls instead of just the one from last night. Gajeel was going to have a hell of a time beating himself up and regretting his actions and the only way to avoid it was the shitty, shitty truth. "Nothing I didn't have coming, don't worry about it." Gajeel had to at least try to brush off the subject of his eye, but he could tell by the look on her face that he was right and she had not intention of dropping the subject any time soon.

Gajeel only briefly got a look at his eye last night before he went to bed, and he definitely had worse things happen to his face. Getting a black eye from a dainty girl was something he could easily handle, but if anyone asked he was going to claim that it was a workplace related injury. He could practically feel Lucy staring a hole in the back of his head, he just wanted to grab his breakfast and eat in peace, but he knew he was going to get interrogated the moment he sat down. His cousin would leave him alone, Natsu might crack a joke about him getting his ass kicked, but if Gajeel told him to mind his own business he would drop it after he was bored of poking fun at him. Him and Natsu grew up together, he knew how to mind his own business, he wasn't the type of person to pry if unless it was something serious. If it was he would try and fight the answer out of Gajeel and help him if he needed to. Lucy on the other hand always felt like she had to move heaven and earth to fix everything and help everyone, it didn't matter if the person wanted the help or not. "Fine. I if I fucking tell you how I got the black eye, will you leave me alone and stop staring at me?"

"Gajeel... I'm just worried about you, okay. You were out all night, and then you come home like that... Did you get in another fight? Is someone trying to mess with you?"

"Puh-lease! I can handle myself! Lucy will you stop trying to mother me? You know what fine, I'll tell you all the dirty details, even the ones you probably don't want to know. I went out with this chick last night, she was nice, things were going fine. One thing lead to another and she was nice enough to please me orally in the bathroom. But, me being the giant piece of shit that I am called her the wrong fucking name and she punched me in the face. I came on her face, she punched me in mine, so I would say it was a pretty even trade off. Now will you leave me the fuck alone?" Gajeel already knew how both of them were going to react, Lucy went from shocked, to disgusted to a look that just said she was disappointed to him. And from the moment he mentioned his bathroom blowjob Natsu spit out his drink and was holding his sides laughing at him from the floor. Gajeel already came to terms with what happened last night and he didn't care anymore, he tried apologizing to the girl and ended up with a black eye because of it.

"Gajeel... I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life or anything... But, I feel like you would get in a lot less trouble, if you just... Ya know, kept it to yourself..." Gajeel could feel his eye twitch,he had to remind himself that Lucy meant well, part of him knew she was only saying that because she cared about him. But, the other more dominant ass hole part of him couldn't believe the nerve of this women. Just who the fuck did she think she was? She was his cousins woman, not his, so why the fuck did she think she could throw in her two cents about his life. Old Gajeel would have called her out of her name and told her to mind her own fucking business. But the newer, more mature version of himself was just gonna have to piss her off.

"Yeah, well I really cant want to keep it in your sister." Gajeel couldn't help but laugh at the shock, followed by the anger on her face, if he kept it up he might end up with a matching shiner for the other side of his face. He knew from Natsu that Lucy was insanely protective of her younger sister, and if Gajeel even thought about pursuing her Lucy would kill him in his sleep.

"GAJEEL! KEEP YOUR COMMUNITY PENIS AWAY FROM MY SISTER!"

"Make up your mind girly, you told me you wanted me to make her feel welcomed. I can make her want to never leave." Gajeel wasn't usually the type of guy to be gross and talk about shit like this. But if he wanted to to get under Lucy's skin this was usually the way to do it. Any other time Gajeel would be pissed about someone knocking on his door at 7:30 in the morning and he had no problem letting the person on the other side know exactly felt about it. But this time he was thankful for the interruption because it was getting him a good distance from an angry Lucy who was currently cutting her pancakes with a larger than necessary knife. Gajeel's usual greeting to anyone who darkened his doorway before 10 am was "What the fuck do you want?" But this time he couldn't even get the words out of his mouth before the person on the other side asked him a question that made him question everything he knew.

"Hey, is Lucy here?"

* * *

I didn't want to type out the lyrics to the song she sang because in sing fics I usually just scroll right past them. The song Levy sang was bound to happen by the spill canvas if you want to look it up, and I'll link it when I post it on tumblr. -Chesxca


	6. Chapter 6

7:20 AM

Levy thought her phone was either broken, or it just had to be lying. Seventy-five degrees in Chicago felt nothing like it did in L.A. This was insane, she was used to it being close to a hundred when she in Hollywood, but for some reason she just felt grosser and sweatier than she imagined could be possible. Between the way her thighs were rubbing together and her shirt was sticking to her, she just knew she was going to end up turning into a gross blue haired puddle long before she made it to her destination. She thought she was going insane when she woke up this morning, for some reason her phone was telling her that it was only 23 degrees even though it felt like she slept in an oven last night. She knew Chicago could get pretty cold later in the year, but she hadn't exactly packed boots and a snow suit for that kind of weather, it wasn't until she was dressed and ready to go did she realize she never changed her phone back from Celsius to Fahrenheit from her last trip overseas and she was sure if her phone didn't automatically adjust to the time zone she just knew she would still be on Japan's time or something silly. The heat wasn't so bad at first, she could have called a Taxi or an Uber to come pick her up if she was feeling particularly lazy, but the wait time on one of those would take a lot longer than just walking where she needed to go and she could probably use the fresh air.

Levy forgot where she heard Chicago was pretty rainy this time of year, it was either from her sister or from watching the news a while ago. She knew it was a pretty windy place due to its reputation and the way it was blowing at her hair that actually looked decent before the weather decided it wanted to throw in its two cents. But she didn't expect it to start pouring in the middle of her walk, that's just what she needed, so far Chicago and its bipolar ass weather could go fuck itself. She didn't want to start running in the wrong direction and get herself lost or in one of those less than stellar neighborhoods she's heard so much about. But she also wanted to catch her sister before she ran off again and it was even harder to find her. Finding Lucy's apartment last night was easy enough, even thought it was her first time going there she did know where her sister hid her spare key and was able to let her self in without bothering anyone. It was supposed to be a nice surprise, but Levy ended up falling asleep and her sister never came home last night. Natsu's apartment was a little harder to find, he didn't have it posted on facebook and she had no clue what the address was, she just remembered that he lived close enough that they could walk to each others apartments, and that Natsu had a strange habit of climbing into her window at night. When Levy heard about that for the first time she sent her a box full of pepper spray and a taser just in case her new boyfriend turned out to be crazy. But Lucy promised her that even though Natsu was weird he was pretty sweet and completely harmless.

Levy knew she could just save herself a lot of trouble and just call her sister and tell her she was in her home, but that would ruin the surprise she worked so hard to set up. Levy ended using her phones find my iPhone function to find her sister, it was only like a ten minute walk and she figured her sister would still be hugged up to her boyfriend this time a day, so why not surprise them both by showing up at his front door. She felt kind of bad that she was showing up empty handed, maybe she should have took the time to go find a place that served breakfast or patisseries nearby as a surprise. Her and Lucy hadn't seen each other in over six months and that was only for maybe about ten minutes before Levy had to get on stage and she couldn't exactly blame her sister for not being there when she returned. Levy wasn't proud of how she reacted when her sister told her she was marrying Natsu, Levy hadn't even met the guy yet and they had been dating less than a year when he proposed. Levy supported her sister when she ran away from home and moved halfway across the country to pursue a writing career, hell Levy had been covering all of her sisters bills after their father cut Lucy off. But it took Levy a while before she completely on board with this wedding. She wanted to make up with her sister and if Natsu was what made her happy she was going to support them too. She felt guilty about judging Natsu before she met him, that's probably why she volunteered to pay for their wedding. That fight with her sister was so long ago, they seemed like they were on good terms through texts and talking on the phone, she just wasn't sure how her sister was going to react to seeing her in person for the first time in so long.

According to her phone this was where her sister is, at least that's where her phone was, she knew which building it was, but finding out which apartment was going to be a little bit trickier. Lucky for her the front door to the building was open and she was able to look at the names on the mailboxes hoping that something looked familiar, if that failed she could always ask somebody if they knew a pink haired guy named Natsu. She didn't remember his last name but she knew it was something with a D. It wasn't Davis or Diaz she remembered that much, she remembered teasing Lucy and calling her Mrs. Dragon so it had to be something like that, Dragneel... Redfox/Dragneel was apartment 205 so that had to be it. If it wasn't she hoped whoever's door she was going to be knocking on had a clue who Natsu or Lucy was. Levy wasn't very trusting of elevators, she had been stuck in her fair share of them while staying in hotels on tour, she thought it was pointless to take one to the second floor so even though it was hotter than satan's gooch right now she took the stairs and was finally in front of what she was hoping is the correct door. She could hear someone talking on the other side, so at least the residents were awake, she would have felt shitty waking someone up this early just for her the to be in the wrong place.

Levy didn't know why she made it a habit of standing on the tips of her toes to knock on doors, she had been doing it since she was a child and just never broke the tradition once she made it to adulthood. She waited a minute before she knocked on the door a second time, this time a little harder since she could still hear voices on the other side of the door. Hopefully they weren't just ignoring her, sometimes she could develop quite the temper. When her band mates didn't open their doors in a time she considered quick enough she was known to turn around and start kicking the door until they opened up and proved that they were actually getting ready and not still sleeping. She thought about knocking a third time, but she figured she would give them another minute, but she hated waiting and she just wanted to know if she was at the right apartment or not. "What the fu-"

Great wrong apartment, some giant answered the door, Levy had to tilt her head back just to look at his face, she was used to being shorter than most people but this guy was just ridiculously taller than her. If she looked straight ahead she would just be staring at his chest, which isn't a great way to greet people unless you wanted to seem like a pervert, and the last thing she wanted to be is a strange pervert knocking on the wrong apartment. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head realizing how weird she must look wearing them indoors, and she didn't want to seem ruder than she already was for knocking on this strange man's apartment this early in the morning. "Hey, is Lucy here?" The strange man didn't answer her, she knew she always got weird looks for her blue hair and short stature. But this guy with his size and long hair looked like a dothraki double out of game of thrones just with piercings. Not to mention the very obvious black eye he had, it looked painful, she wanted to touch it and ask him if he was alright. Maybe get some ice or something frozen for him to help with the pain. "I'm sorry, do I have the wrong apartment?" She was two seconds from just running the other way until she heard her sister yell out her name and she ducked under the large man's arm into the apartment, even though ducking probably wasn't necessary. "LULU!"

* * *

"Hey, is Lucy here?" Alright, either Gajeel hit snooze one too many times, rolled over and took his ass back to sleep. Or Lucy finally got sick of his shit, hit him the back of the head and her and Natsu are currently hiding his body. Either way he needed to wake the fuck up, cause there was no way in hell that SHE was here! It's official he was going fucking insane, if talking to himself wasn't bad enough, he was having a delusion of the very subject of all of his wet dreams and daydreams while he was wide awake. He was all the way off his fucking rocker, and why the hell was Natsu and Lucy included in this wet dream? As many times as he dreamed about her standing outside of his door, it was never this vivid, it was never this real. Her hair a more vibrant blue than he ever imagined before, the look in her eyes a mixture of curiosity and confusion. "I'm sorry, do I have the wrong apartment?" This was usually the part of the dreams when he held her in his arms and kissed her, he would like to think that dream Gajeel was pretty smooth, but right now he couldn't even find the words to open his fucking mouth.

Lucy: "Levy!?"

Levy: "LULU!" Whatever delusion he was having ducked under his arm and into his apartment to embrace Lucy. "You didn't come home last night, I was worried sick! I figured you were over here with your boy toy, if you weren't here I was gonna have to go full Liam Neeson and come find you."

Natsu: "You know I have a name sis." Hearing Natsu's voice definitely broke him out of whatever trance he was in.

Levy: "Yeah, but pink haired fire bae is too much of a mouthful this early in the morning, so Lucy's boy toy it is."

Natsu: "Levia, huh? So Levy's just a nickname then?"

Levy: "So is Lucy."

Lucy: "Levy, shut up!"

Natsu: "What's Lucy short for?

Levy: "Lucia."

Natsu: "Lucia, and Levia Heartfilia? Those are such rich girls names! Lucy were not giving our kids some of those weird ass rich kids names like orange and watermelon and shit."

Lucy:"...Isn't it a little early to be discussing baby names?"

Levy & Natsu: "Nah"

Natsu: "By the way Lev, the guy by the door being a fucking weirdo is my cousin Gajeel."

Levy: "Oh, the infamous best man I've heard so much about? Levia Heartfilia, its nice finally to meet you." Gajeel still could barely get his brain to work enough to get the words to come out of his mouth, he was finally able to get out the word "same" before his cousin butted back in the conversation which he was secretly thankful for. Gajeel knew he was being a total creep right now and he didn't know how to stop himself. Hopefully she just thought he was being rude that way when he speak more than word again he could blame it on not being a morning person and a lack coffee in his system. Watching the three of them interact just made him feel like an outsider more than usual and somebody who just left out of the joke. He wanted to be mad at Natsu for not mentioning just who the hell Lucy's sister was the moment he found out, and he wanted to be mad at Lucy for not introducing them sooner. But honestly he was sure neither one of them knew about his secret obsession with the girl standing in the middle of his kitchen because he hid it from just about everyone. Maybe if he paid more attention to Lucy when she was talking about her life he would have known sooner and he would have realized that they actually have the same last name. He knew that Levy's real name was "Levia Marie McGarden Heartfilia from the internet but usually when he looked her up he searched "Levy Gear." Gajeel didn't even know Lucy's last name until today and he had known her over a year.

* * *

Levy hadn't been able to pry her sister off of her since she walked through the door, not that she wanted to, she didn't exactly mind her sisters affection. It was the first time she had been hugged by someone who wasn't a fan in who knows how long. She was taking in all the things that reminded her of Lucy so she could hold on to the memory when they were separated again in a few days. Even though her and her sister were hundreds of miles away from where they grew up together, when she was with her big sister she felt like she was at home. From the way she could feel her tears on her sisters shirt, to the way her hair smelled, to the way being pushed up against her was a reminded that Lucy won the puberty lottery in the family when it came to chest size, and left Levy out to dry. "Lulu, don't cry. You're gonna make me cry too." Levy had to laugh when her soon to be brother joined the hug and wrapped his arms around the both of them, he was obviously able to sense Lucy's mood and knew she needed another hug on top of the one she was already getting.

"Levy... I wish you would have told me you were coming, we could have made plans, I would have took work off...How long are you going to be in town? I have so much stuff I want to do with you. Sleepovers, spa days, I want to show you my dress! I want you to try yours on, we can get our hair and nails done. We can ditch the boys and have a girls night, you can meet all my new friends. I think Gajeel works today too, but I don't know if he can be trusted, maybe I'll just have to find you another guide." Levy wasn't sure why her sister when from sad, to excited, to angry in all of ten seconds but she was positive her last mood change had a lot to do with the man who still hadn't bothered moving from the open door. He had been staring at her strangely since she got here and she wasn't sure if it was because he recognized her or not. Most of the time her fans gave her a look of awe, but for some reason this guy just sort of looked like he was constipated. Maybe he was mad that she just invited herself into his home first thing in the morning with no notice, but didn't want to say anything because Natsu and Lucy was welcoming her with open arms.

"Lucy! Why are you holding a knife? Stop being crazy!" Alright know Levy knew this guy did something to piss her off, Lucy could be a bit temperamental from time to time but usually ended up with someone getting kicked or punched or something thrown at their head, not stabbed. She wondered what the poor guy did to get on Lucy's super bad, crazy, homicidal side. "Lulu, you're getting married in five weeks, I don't think you want to be saying your vows from behind bars." Levy was glad that she could get Lucy to put down the knife, she didn't actually think her sister would have attacked the guy, but she had been living in Chicago for almost two years now so she wasn't going to trust her gut on that one. "Levy I'm here until Tuesday, and then i'll be back in a month, we have time to do all the stuff you want to okay. Don't stress yourself out trying to cram it all into a couple days. And I'm a big girl, I can get around fine by myself if I have to. I found you didn't I? And please don't hurt anyone, okay."

"I don't like the way he's looking at you...Gajeel maybe you should go to work. I'm feeling stabby."

"I don't have to leave for another hour...And calm down woman I was joking." Levy was confused, why did her sister have it out for this guy. He just seemed quiet and like he was minding his own business. Obviously she was missing something.

* * *

"Don't worry Lev, i'll fill you in. Lucy's just mad cause Gajeel keeps making jokes about banging you." Of the many times Gajeel thought about literally killing Natsu, this was the first time he wished he actually acted on that urge. Gajeel couldn't react fast enough, before he knew it the words spilled out of his cousins mouth, and didn't know whether he wanted to drag his cousin up to the roof and fling him off, or jump himself. It seemed like Lucy was thinking the same homicidal thoughts about Natsu right now, and also about him. That glare of hers jumped from him and Natsu and back a few times before she finally decided on who her victim was going to be.

"NATSU!" Gajeel was glad that his cousin was the one being yanked by the ear right now and not him, but he was sure he was going to face her wrath later. Even worse he was Levy thought he was some gross pervert and was either going to slap him, tell him to stay away from her and get a restraining order.

"Oh yeah, when should I pencil that in?"

"LEVY!"

She was laughing? She thought it was funny that he wanted to fuck her? Or maybe she just thought it was funny that he ever thought he would have a chance with someone as amazing as she was. "Oh Lucy, you're overreacting. I live with three boys and Cana who is worse than the three boys. Its okay, I get it. It's how guys talk, I'm sure he didn't mean any harm by it."

"Gajeel don't you dare try anything funny with my sister! Just because she forgives you, doesn't mean I do." Gajeel had never seen anyone bring Lucy down from one her rants so fast before in his life. Him and Natsu were usually the victims of her lectures about "that's not how good men behave" and "how would you feel if someone said that about your daughter?" Usually him and Natsu just made the jokes when she wasn't around unless he felt like making Lucy mad on purpose and then he would talk about how he was going to be her new brother and there was nothing she could do about it. Every time he made these jokes he had no clue who Lucy's sister was or what she even looked like. He didn't even bother looking her up on Facebook to see if she was actually attractive, it was a weird feeling knowing that he actually felt that way. He never thought all the jokes he made about Lucy's sister were actually true. He had no plans to actually pursue her, he was going to do the bare minimum when the wedding came around, show her the landmarks, take her to dinner, and then ditch her until Lucy came back. But now he was looking forward to spending time with Lucy's maid of honor, and he was going to use these three days to learn all he could about her, and woo the fuck out of her next month.


	7. Chapter 7

9:05 AM

"What kind of twenty-six year old man volunteers to come into work on a Saturday to do paperwork?" One that needed the overtime. One that didn't have a life. One that was trying his best to stay out of trouble and on the straight and narrow for the first time in his life. One who's life just got flipped on its head this morning and if he stayed home he would have probably just stood there with his mouth wide open the rest of the day. Even though Gajeel had a snarky comebacks to his partners question to avoid the sad truth of the situation, now wasn't the time to sass him. He even took the long way to work and sat in his car for a good ten minutes trying to wrap his head around the fact that everything that happened this morning was reality and not some shit he made up in a day dream. He even pinched himself a few times trying to snap himself out of the delusion of a living, breathing Levy Gear standing in his kitchen with her arms wrapped around Lucy for the better part of his morning. "Oh god what happened to your face? Did you get into another fight? Gajeel, I thought we were past this." Gajeel knew before he even walked in the door that Lily was going to scold him about his face, when he was still a rookie he had a bad habit of getting into fights when he was off duty, and Lily practically dragged him by the ear to anger management classes and gave him a pretty lengthy speech about how the law was supposed to be setting a good example.

"Not now Lil, we got more important things to worry about. Is Juvi here yet? Emergency meeting, meet me in her office in ten." Great he bought himself another fifteen minutes, even though he knew they would both show up on time, they would wait another five minutes before they hunted him down and ask him what the emergency was. But was fifteen minutes enough time to figure out what the hell he was going to say? Help me snag the literal girl of my dreams? Help me turn into another person in the next couple hours? Kidnap her so I can rescue her and she'll fall for me? Gajeel didn't exactly have a long line of people he could talk to about his love life, even with these two being on board he knew it was going to be risky. He was an idiot, Lily hadn't been on a date in over ten years and Juvia either completely obsessively loved someone, or not at all. Gajeel was already on his third cup of coffee, and the caffeine wasn't making his brain work anymore than it usually did, now he was just jittery on top of nervous, confused, and in the back of his mind extremely hopeful that he could figure this out.

If he wanted to make any progress today he knew he was going to have to dodge the separate interrogations from Lily and Juvia about his face, last nights date, and the fact that the two things were connected. Lily would be straight forward about it, he wouldn't pry or ask for too many details, but he would find a way to make it a lesson and give him a pep talk. Juvia on the other hand would sneakily ask about it all day, act like she didn't have knowledge about his surprise date, and then threaten and have to be stopped from actually hunting the girl down the minute Juvia found out she hit him. Juvia was the type of friend who didn't care what the hell you did, you hurt someone she cares about and she had no problem hunting someone down. Gajeel was either going to have to just rip the bandaid off and tell them about it first, or slip it in later to avoid distracting them from the problem at hand.

Gajeel liked to think himself a pretty blunt person, but he was also very private, which was a terrible combination when it came to asking someone from help. He could feel his friends grow more and more impatient as he opened and closed his mouth for the third time without actually saying anything. "I guess I'll just rip off the fucking bandaid and get to the point. I'm having lady troubles..." Gajeel already knew their responses were going to be less than amused, he wanted to sink in his chair and disappear when Lily just groaned and Juvia rolled her eyes at his confession. They've had this conversation a few times before, usually some homicidal chick or her family wanting his head on a platter, or some boyfriend he didn't know about coming for revenge. He really needed to learn to keep a lid on his dick, last night was a shtty reminder that he had a hard time saying no to a willing woman and sticking to it. If he would have actually behaved himself last night, he would have one less black eye and one less girl hating him and probably a dozen less jokes about he should have ducked. Yeah he was dick, maybe even toeing the line a little more on being a piece of shit, but was that reason enough to not pursue the woman he never thought he would talk to, let alone have an opportunity to spend time with. He needed advice, real fucking advice this time.

"Well, what else is new? You have trouble with women like weekly. You're like a magnet for it. Is that what happened to your face? Another angry boyfriend? brother? father? God I hope it's not another father, they're a little harder to convince that violence isn't the answer, when you're running around defiling their daughters." Yeah... He deserved that. There was a reason why Gajeel completely trusted Lily, he was more than a partner, sometimes he was like an older brother to him, right now he was being more like a father. Gajeel would usually be annoyed with this sort of advice. Lily was constantly telling him that if he didn't keep it in his pants he was going to regret in the long run and that he was hurting himself more than any heart he broke or feelings he hurt by only having physical relationships. "Gajeel one day you're going to find a good woman you want to spend the rest of your life with, but you need to make sure you're giving her a good man in return." Was something he often said to him, and it was something Gajeel often ignored. Now Gajeel understood that his bad reputation was going to come back and bite him in the ass. Lucy had a front row seat to all of his transgressions over the last year. And the story's had come out of his own mouth. She was going to be the number one obstacle the minute she found out that he actually wanted to pursue her sister.

"Gajeel... You know that I love you, but you had Juvia all worried for this?" Gajeel knew he deserved all the shade they were throwing, even last night was a shining example of him ultimately thinking with his dick always getting on the way of his attempts at good intentions. He was mostly ignoring Juvia's rant about how he ran away all the girls she tried to set him up with. It's not like he asked her to, most of the time he refused to meet up with them in the first place and Juvia yelled at him about how she didn't want him to die alone and how she wanted to be an auntie. "Lisanna is a really nice girl, and Juvia's friend and you made Lisanna cry. I should hit you, running out on her like that. She said she never wants to see you or hear your stupid name again, so Gajeel doesn't have to worry about her coming for revenge. I would watch out for her sister though." Gajeel knew he might end up with another black eye if he admitted if he didn't know what last nights dates name was, he never would have guessed Lisanna though. He should have known it was going to be something weird since she had a sister named Mirajane and and a brother named Elfman, which Gajeel thought that was a fucking nickname until he went drinking with the man and saw his I.D.

"Juvia... How do you make someone fall in love with you?" If anyone one knew how to do it, it was the woman in front of him, her face went from slightly annoyed to confused. "And I don't mean you're friend from last night, tell her I'm sorry I hurt her feelings and I suck. There's another girl I've had a thing for, for a while now... And I'm at a loss at what the fuck I'm supposed to do about it. Gajeel knew he had to sound like a scumbag, less than twelve hours ago he was on a date with another girl, who he stupidly got intimate with. Now he's at work begging his friends to help him win over a girl he just met this morning. Lily just looked surprised, this was probably the first time Gajeel ever asked for help with his love life, and if it was anyone but Levy Gajeel would be surprised at himself too. Juvia was just doing that really annoying ear piercing shriek girls did when they were excited, and he was already regretting bringing her in on this."Look it's not like I have the most redeeming qualities going on over here, so I'm not gonna be able to win her over with my "shining" personality. I'm not going to get up all in the details and my feelings and shit, but this is LITERALLY the girl of my dreams. Usually I wouldn't give a shit, I'll try if I fail, so what. If I fuck things up with this girl I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life." The more he talked about it the more he wanted to puke, Lily hadn't actually said anything since his first confession, but his mouth dropped open more and more with each addition to it. Juvia was just over there yelling about weddings and babies, which Gajeel would usually disagree with, but when it came to Levy he was on board with whatever the fuck he needed to do to make her his. "And before you two even fucking ask I'm not telling you her name! Because Juvia you're going to fucking Facebook stalk her and add her as a friend and do some embarrassing shit like tell her how "amazing" I am or something. And Lily's gonna fucking background check her, so no, I'm not telling you two shit because you can't be trusted... I just can't fuck this up."

* * *

1:30 PM

Gajeel honestly wished he waited until the end of his shift to do his groveling. Begging just put a bad taste in his mouth, and he spent half his shift responding to messages from Juvia who wouldn't stop berating him with questions and taking to Lily who he couldn't exactly escape since they sat across from each other. While Lily's questions were a lot less frequent that Juvia's, they were a lot less superficial and it made Gajeel's mind race thinking about why he liked Levy so much and how he knew she was the one. He didn't have a real answer, he just knew, and seeing her in person just yanked all of his thoughts and fantasies about her right to the front of his mind. He didn't even know if he was going to see her again, before the concert if he decided to go, before the wedding? Walking down the aisle with her was just going to be a slap in the face for him, and he was somewhere between the fight or flight response when people are in uncomfortable situations. He was usually a fighter, but crawling in a hole until this whole thing was over and avoiding a broken heart sounded pretty good right now. "Hey stapler face!" Fucking Natsu! The guy was a pro at interrupting him when he was deep in though and Gajeel couldn't even remember the drive home or the walk from his car to the front door properly. Sometimes Gajeel genuinely thought he would miss when Natsu finally left the nest, But times like this he wondered how they hadn't killed each other after living together for almost eight years. "Stay the hell out your room. Okay?"

"You picking a fight with me jackass? The fuck'd you do to my room?" The last time Natsu told him to stay out of his room was on his birthday three years ago, of course that made him take a beeline straight towards it, only to discover that one of his pillows was completely destroyed and half of the contents of his desk on the floor. He thought maybe Natsu finally lost his damn mind until he heard meowing from under his bed, the first one he was able to grab without a fight. Gajeel honestly felt bad for scaring the little thing with all of his yelling, it ran straight for Natsu and he didn't even want to know the story behind why the damn this was blue. "You got a cat?" Once Natsu admitted that he got Gajeel one too, it took what seemed like forever to corner the second one, and its greeting to Gajeel was sticking its tiny teeth into one of his fingers. "Okay this one's a fighter and he's pissed." After trying to claw Gajeel's eyes out and bite him the second cat finally calmed down after it was fed and Natsu spent the rest of the day convincing Gajeel to let the cats stay. Gajeel didn't like to admit that he was a big softy, but the minute Natsu mentioned that he pulled the kittens along with three others out of a river earlier that day, he knew he wasn't about to let the little black kitten in his lap out of his sight. "Natsu, I swear to fucking god, if there's more cats in there. I'm kicking you out and they can have your room." It was bad enough they had two cats, and Lucy's dog in the apartment most of the time, their apartment wasn't small, but two men, two cats, a woman and her teacup dog was more than Gajeel could handle most days.

"No, Lucy's sister's asleep in your room, and I don't need you freaking her out. Waking up with you standing over my bed is a nightmare I've experienced first hand and poor Levy doesn't deserve to be scared like that. Plus you've been on the receiving end of one of Lucy's kicks, do you really want to find out the hard way that her sister is just as violent?" Gajeel had to try his hardest not to show that all the air just escaped his lungs, dreams do fucking come true and the creep in his couldn't wait to bury his face into one of his pillows. Wait was his room clean? When was the last time he changed his sheets? Did he pick up his laundry? Was Lily's litter box clean? It would be just his luck that the damn cat would have left a giant unburied turd on top of litter and now the love of his life thinks he's a dirt person, with a shitty smelling room. "I didn't want the cats to bother her so I locked both of them in my room." Gajeel didn't catch it at first, but there was something off about his cousin. Natsu wasn't his loud cheery self that made Gajeel want to throw him off the roof for when it was still six in the morning. The biggest sign that something was up, is that Natsu was currently elbow deep in dishes, Natsu never did the fucking dishes. Gajeel had to threaten him with bodily harm just to get him to pick up his dirty towel off the bathroom floor and now that he looked around more the whole apartment looked a lot cleaner than it was this morning.

"Are you... cleaning?" He watched his cousin stiffen, Gajeel could probably count on one hand the times he's actually seen Natsu deep in thought, and the last time was when he was preparing his proposal to Lucy.

"Gajeel, you love me right?"

"Honestly it depends on the day.

"Dude you have to help me! Please." Natsu was just like him in the fact he didn't beg for shit, today was a weird day for both of them obviously, and Gajeel had no clue what his cousin needed his help with. "You know Lucy's family is kind of..."

"So rich they wipe their asses with 100's."

"Yeah that. Well, Lucy would never say it, but her family doesn't exactly approve of me, and the only person that bothered to give me a chance and meet me is her sister. Lucy's family cut her off when she moved out here and her dad told her not to come back home if she was marries me, and her sister has been taking care of her ever since then. She's even the one who paid for our wedding so we didn't just have to elope downtown with a shitty picture as the only memory. Levy's the only one on my side right now and I don't want to fuck that up, I know Levy's a good person and she won't try to get in-between Lucy and me, but if nobody in her family supports us. I'm afraid Lucy's going to change her mind. I know Lucy loves me, there's no doubt about that, but is she really going to be happy giving up all that money and stuff just to be with me?" Who the fuck is this and what did he do with Natsu? His cousin was never this serious, and they sure as hell didn't talk to each other about their feelings. Even when Natsu told Gajeel that he was proposing to Lucy, it was a casual conversation that ended with "Hey, pass me a beer."

Gajeel felt like a dick for not knowing his cousin was dealing with that, sure he knew Lucy was a little rich girl that ran away from home, but he thought she was just living off a trust fund and seeing how the other side lives. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense, she lived in a studio apartment shittier than theirs, she was always eating at their house. Even with her sister taking care of all of her bills, Lucy didn't really know how to budget her money or spend responsibly. Gajeel could remember overhearing a conversation about how lobster was actually expensive after Natsu asking her what she wanted for dinner. Another time Natsu was asking Lucy how she blew through two grand in like a day, and Gajeel just rolled his eyes and mumbled about rich people and Lucy was able to blow through more money than he made in a week. "So... Is Lucy's sister going to stop helping her when you guys get married?" The whole situation seemed fucked to him, he always made jokes about Natsu marrying a rich girl so she could take care of him, but it being the opposite didn't really sit well with Gajeel.

"No... I feel like shit about it, but Levy offered to pay half of our bills when we get a place together, and she's already been sending Lucy five grand a month to live off of and she asked me if we needed more. I want to tell her no, that we don't need it at all, but I don't want to Lucy to have to suffer while I try to land us on our feet. Like I know she's stupid rich, even without her dad's money. But I still feel like shit for asking for a handout, like just this morning she paid off the rest of the wedding and all I could say was thanks. How am I supposed to make up for that, I want to show Levy a good time, but where do you take a girl that's been everywhere? What do you give to someone who has everything? Lucy works the rest of the day and I've never hung out with Levy without her, so I don't even know what to do. Girls like clothes and food, so I figured we would go to the mall when she woke up. But, I need you to come with us to make sure I don't do anything stupid, and don't be a dick either."

An open invitation to spend time with Levy? Today was working out in his favor already, now if he could actually pull his foot out of his mouth around her. "Dude I'll kiss her ass if you want me to. I don't care its not a big deal." Glady, I will gladly kiss her ass if you want me to was what he was really thinking. But he was sure telling Natsu he wanted Levy would probably stress him out even more. "Do you really think you're going to have to walk around eggshells every time she's around though?" Even though Gajeel didn't personally know much about Levy, he knew enough about her to know that most people described her as a ball of sunshine. He couldn't imagine her whispering in Lucy's ear about leaving Natsu or something like that. But Natsu had been a bit of a groomzilla the past couple weeks and now he understood why he was so on edge.

"No, Levy's great. I'm just paranoid and planning for the worst case scenario just in case. And, you agreed to that a little too fast. Lucy said you had the hots for her sister, but I told her she was just being paranoid so she wouldn't cut your dick off." Shit, was he that fucking see through? "Look I know you well enough to know when you've got your eye on someone, I don't really care as long as you 1 stay the fuck away from her before the wedding, the last thing I need right now is to be planning your funeral and bailing Lucy out of jail. I don't need the fucking stress. and 2 you are not under any circumstances allowed to hump and dump Levy, if anything happens between you two she better break up with you. I don't care if she turns out to be crazy and wants to stick stuff up your ass."

"I don't know what you're fucking talking about." Gajeel didn't even believe his own lie, and the "yeah sure" response from Natsu told him that his cousin didn't believe him either.

* * *

Trying to get back on a normal writing schedule. Its been a little crazy since I started school. Thanks for reading-Chescxa


	8. Chapter 8

1:35 PM

For some reason the universe was just against Levy sleeping another minute today, which was just completely unfair. This was one of the last opportunities she had to sleep as much as she wanted to before the second half of her tour, and she felt like she was just wasting a grand opportunity. She had been staring at the ceiling for over an hour now, it didn't even bother her that it was a strange one. She wanted to sleep and every time she thought she was close to going back into the sweet embrace of slumber something ruined it. The first culprit was the sun, which was easily fixed by closing the blackout curtains that were in the room she was temporarily borrowing. The next offender was the hustle and bustle of city life, usually she didn't have to deal with things like the music of traffic and people cutting their grass on the other side of her window. When she was traveling via tour bus she always used noise cancelling headphones and an eye mask to drown out any sights and sounds she didn't want to deal with. While sleeping in a strange bed would be a problem for most people, it didn't even phase her, she couldn't even recall the last time she slept in the same bed more than a few nights in a row. And this bed was far more comfortable than the joke of the one she had on the tour bus. Levy spent most of her life in hotel rooms even before she was famous, well, more famous. Being the youngest daughter of the owners of the world's most successful hotel chain got her a lot of attention growing up, but it was nothing like the fame she had now. If her father wasn't traveling for work, her family was vacationing on one side of the world or the other. Most people would envy such a thing but being dragged around and forced onto planes for long flights wasn't exactly the most glorious thing in the world. Even as a kid she was often stuck on a twenty-hour flight just to turn around and do it again to come home a day later, it was hellish and unnecessary. But people with money often felt like they had to spend it, like the one time her mother flew her and Lucy all the way to Rome because Lucy had to do a research paper on it and her mother wanted her to experience it firsthand. Which in theory was nice, but they were in fifth grade and Levy's paper just happen to be on Tokyo and they flew there three days later to do the same thing.

Their upbringing made Levy wonder if her sister purposely went out looking for a husband with an upbringing so different from theirs. Natsu was a gem and the rich boys that pursued them their whole lives were, well dicks. Lucy's apartment alone was a culture shock when Levy stepped into for the first time, her sisters' new home was just one room that was about the size of the walk-in closet Lucy had at the Heartfilia manor. This apartment was an even stranger premise to her, Lucy lived above a store, but she didn't have any neighbors in the building besides the business down stairs. This building had to have around twelve apartments and Levy did her best not to show how squished she felt in it. The room she was in right now was smaller than her personal bathroom at home, but somehow the man she met earlier named Gajeel was able to squeeze his whole life in here. How didn't he feel cramped? He was a lot taller than her, and the bed she was currently in took up most of the room. She guessed he needed it a huge bed because of his height, Levy was sure she could lay across his bed horizontally and her feet still wouldn't hang off. Besides this giant person sized bed, he had other things in his room, a desk full of neatly stacked files, and a computer, a tv mounted to the wall, with a remote she found digging in her back after her first catnap. The most surprising thing about his room she noticed the first time when she was still groggy. What the hell was her face doing inside of his closet? She couldn't even mistake it for a mirror, there was no way her hair looked that good after a nap.

Her first impression of this Gajeel person was that he was either just really quiet or shy, or still half asleep when she invited herself into his apartment. But, seeing a poster of herself taped to the door inside of his closet explained his behavior a little better. So, he was a fan? It was surprising, because her sister never mentioned it before, maybe with the location of the poster Lucy didn't even know, he could be one of her many closeted fans. That wasn't exactly a rare thing either, Shadow Gears biggest fan base was teens, but in second place of their biggest fan group was the parents of those teenagers, specifically their fathers. Most of her meet and greets involved her trying to keep the paws of older men off of her, and their kids finding out the hard way that their dads are bigger fans than them. The teens looked completely shocked when their seemingly bored parents went from annoyed to be waiting, to screaming louder than them for pictures and autographs. Levy lost count of the number of times that she had been groped or kissed on before security had a chance to intervene. As bad as she had it, the boys had it worse with the stay at home moms who took it upon themselves to get handsy with them, but security was so concentrated on protecting her, that the guys usually had to fend for themselves. Leo was a particularly popular victim of unwanted female attention, but he always took it in stride with a smile and a wink no matter how uncomfortable he was. Jet didn't hesitate to eject any fan that got a little too comfortable to him, and Droy just didn't get close enough to the fans to allow it to happen.

Sometimes having fans could be complicated, some fans were fine with just appreciating her music, but other ones thought they were entitled to her life. What people didn't understand was the fact that fan meetings were always timed, there was only so much time to spend with each person who paid for the meet and greet and if she spent more time with one person that meant less time with another and that wasn't fair. She always felt bad for having to say no to an extra selfie, or not signing a backpack full of merch. There were many times she had to let her fans down and reject an invitation to hang out with them at a club or bar after a show, but she was usually ushered to her dressing room or the tour bus the moment she stepped off stage. When she was a less popular artist it was fine for her to hang out back stage and help the crew clean up, but now for her own safety she was always the last one off the bus and the first one on. The band always left before the rest of the crew anyway, sometimes it was just to whatever hotel they were staying in or just en route to the next city for their next show. Levy wasn't sure if she was going to bring up the fact that Gajeel was a fan, but there wasn't really a way to do it without seeming like she was snooping through his room. The poster wasn't in a particularly visible place, it was on the inside of his closet, and there was no guarantee that he was going to remember leaving the closet door open. She guessed the best thing to do was wait and see if he mentioned it, he would talk about it if he wanted to, and Levy wasn't trying to overstep the boundaries of a man she didn't know and put herself in an awkward situation.

Speaking of avoiding awkward situations, she was kind of stuck in this room staring at a poster of herself because this apartment had extremely thin walls. Even though Levy couldn't exactly hear the specifics of the conversation, she could hear one going on and she didn't want to interrupt. She wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but she was trying to listen for a break in the conversation, or at least make sure the conversation was something she was supposed to be hearing. In her experience boys were way bigger gossips than girls were, and she knew it was likely that she or her sister could be the current subject of discussion. Once Lucy left for work, her future hubby's mood shifted a bit. He was still very friendly, but he almost seemed like he was nervous around her, but she wasn't going to point it out. Levy didn't know him well enough to know if this was his normal behavior around new people, or if she in general was the thing making him uncomfortable. Levy could physically see him sigh in relief when she mentioned she was tired and would love to take a nap. Even though she had way more experience with breaking bread with strangers, she was a little bit nervous too. They were all going to be family soon, so she wanted to start things out on the right foot for Lucy's sake. So, she tousled her already unruly hair, faked a yawn and made her way out of the room slowly but loud enough to give them a warning. "Hey boys, so what do you guys want to do today?"

* * *

3:00 PM

Gajeel didn't know who's cereal he shit in during his last life, but they were getting their sweet, sweet revenge right now. Here he was in the presence of the girl of his dreams, but she was on his cousins' arm instead of his own. For some reason he was always the third wheel when it came to Natsu, he knew the action was completely innocent, but he still couldn't help the twinge of jealous he felt seeing Levy on another man's arm. He knew it was ridiculous, he had no right, he still could barely utter two words to her, so there was no chance anything out of Gajeel's mouth would have been close to smooth or charming enough for the roles to be reversed. He could only watch from the side as Natsu made a joke about rich girls and needing to be escorted everywhere they go, he was used to his cousin making stupid jokes around girls and them falling for his charm, but this time it was especially annoying to see her laugh and lace her arm through his. If that wasn't bad enough they had been stuck in the mall for almost an hour due to Natsu picking up anything and everything he thought that Lucy might like and asking Levy's opinion on it. The girl in question didn't even seem interested in anything they passed, there was probably nothing in the small I was rich enough for her blood and she was speaking interest just to be nice. She Wasn't exactly dressed like a rich girl and that was probably her way of trying to disguise Herself. Black high waisted shorts and a V-neck Were what any average young woman wore on a weekend during a trip to the mall, but it was obvious that her clothes were a little more expensive than the average persons. Even the baseball cap she pulled over her hair was a name brand and he couldn't help but notice the label on the back of her hat.

Gajeel wasn't sure if he was more nervous or relieved when Levy suggested that they all take a break from shopping to sit down and eat. Sure, this was a good opportunity to jump in the conversation, but he didn't know if this was the right time for him to finally nut up and try to talk to her or shut up and avoid saying something stupid. It was probably the first time in Gajeel's life that he was worried about where to sit at a table, he didn't even have this problem in high school, but right now he was over thinking it. Sitting next to Levy might be a little too forward for someone who barely spoke to her all day but sitting as far away from her as possible was a total cop out and might give her the wrong idea. He ended up sitting across from her, Gajeel was trying his best not to stiffen when she smiled at him and passed him a menu and his silverware. Natsu sat next to him and diagonal from her, making it a bit obvious that he was nervous too for very different reasons. After about ten minutes of waiting and ordering their food, Gajeel was actually able to get a few words in the conversation. It was mostly him telling Natsu he was an idiot for all the dumb jokes he was making, but it was way more than he got in all day. "Guys I'll be right back. Don't eat without me." It seemed like as soon as she got a decent length away from the table, him and Natsu both let out whatever breathe they were holding.

Natsu: "Gajeel, I don't think I can keep this up! I've been holding in my farts all day!"

Gajeel: "Then keep up the good work!"

Gajeel was already accustomed to his cousins' habit of oversharing, but bathroom talk in a public place, at a dinner table was hardly the place for it.

Natsu: "I don't want to piss her off or offend her or something, and isn't it like a written rule that you don't rip ass around debutante's?"

Gajeel: "You literally sat on Lucy and almost shit yourself two days ago."

Natsu: "That's different, Lucy loves me! I barely know Levy! Yeah, she's nice and all, almost too nice! Nobody laughs at all of my jokes like that. Especially not Lucy, she just looks disappointed in me and tells me I'm an idiot. I'm running out of jokes that aren't dirty, what the hell am I supposed to do?"

Gajeel: "I don't fucking know, girls like to talk and shit. Just ask her about herself.

Natsu: "That's easy for you to say, you're not helping at all. Maybe come in for an assist or something."

Gajeel: "Fine! The first time in your life you run out of shit to say and I can't even enjoy it."

Levy: "Sorry I took so long; did I miss anything?"

Damn she had good timing, a minute earlier and the conversation still would have been on farts. How the hell was he supposed to start a conversation with her, if he couldn't stop staring at how cute she was.

Natsu: "Oh yeah, Gajeel was just saying how he really wanted to ask you a question."

Gajeel was somewhere between wanting to punch Natsu or just stab him. He would have to get real creative with his butter knife to make his cousin pay, but he was sure sticking it up his ass would just scare Levy off. Now he had to think of something quick before this awkward silence got more awkward.

Levy: "Oh sure, I'm an open book. Within reason of course."

Every time she smiled at him he thought his heart was going to stop, but now wasn't the time to be love struck. He had to dig himself out of the hole Natsu just threw him in.

Gajeel: "Umm... So, you're Lucy's little sister, right? How much younger than her are you?"

It was a safe question, pretty much impossible to offend her with that. Women didn't usually get pissed about age questions until they were like forty and Lucy was only about twenty herself.

Levy: "Yeah, I'm the baby! But, Lu's only three months older than me."

Wait... What?! Gajeel didn't exactly pay attention in health class, but something about that just didn't sound right. Nine months apart was possible, but three months just didn't sound right. He didn't understand how a woman could give birth to two children three months apart. He looked at Natsu and he looked just as confused, and Levy just seemed amused by their reaction.

Levy: "Guys don't hurt yourselves trying to figure it out, it's actually really simple. We have different moms."

Gajeel was thrown off at that, he didn't notice them looking alike until they were in a room together. They both had the same fair skin, even though they had different colored eyes they were both very beautiful. Gajeel didn't really think of Lucy like that, but he wasn't blind. It was obvious they were sisters but hearing that they were half-sisters was just as surprising to him as hearing they were related in the first place.

Natsu: "Man your dad's a pig!"

Gajeel didn't even think of that, but Natsu was right getting two different women knocked up months apart was a pretty scummy thing to do. Levy looked pretty nervous and brushed her hair behind her ear before she dropped her next bombshell on them.

Levy: "They actually planned it..."

Okay Gajeel was absolutely done trying to understand rich people. If a poor guy knocked up two chicks back to back he would have big problems, but for some reason it was perfectly fine and dandy of you were a part of the one percent.

Levy: "Okay let me start from the beginning. My biological mom, and Lucy's biological mom are married. They have been for twenty-five years, and our dad is their boyfriend. And all three of them have been together for over twenty years."

Okay being rich must be the shit, cause this guy had girlfriend wives. Gajeel could barely handle one woman and her feelings at a time, and this guy had a house full of women. Two women and two daughters? That's a lot of feelings to deal with, and this guy was a pro.

Natsu: "Oh, I get it! So, your parents just have threesomes all the time?"

Levy: "Oh my God, ew! I mean I guess so, probably... But that is completely not up for discussion. I think it's time for a subject change."

Levy looked at him for help, and while it was true Natsu could get a little inappropriate at times, this was like next level ridiculous.

Natsu: " So... What do you call your mom?"

Levy: "Mom."

Natsu: "What do you call Lucy's mom?

Levy: "Mom."

Natsu: "What do you call your dad?"

Levy: "Daddy."

Natsu: "What do you call Lucy?"

Levy: "LUCY! Look I have three parents, and no I don't find it weird. Here I'll show you a picture."

Him and Natsu sat and waited for her to scroll through her phone, the closest thing they had to a family portrait was a picture Lucy took of them last year during a Halloween party where they were both drunk and arguing. There was another much more embarrassing picture she took that Gajeel made her delete. Him and Natsu were both passed out on the couch after the part and Natsu was asleep with his head on his shoulder. Sure, the picture was funny and Gajeel honestly didn't give a shit if someone thought if the picture was "gay" or not. But it was just a reminder of all the times him and Natsu were stuck sleeping together and having to fend for themselves growing up, and it wasn't exactly a happy memory. "Okay, this ones from our high school graduation."

There were so many things about her picture that just screamed money. Gajeel didn't even attend his high school graduation, but he went to Natsu's and couldn't help but laugh when the idiot tripped halfway down the stairs to get his diploma and him turning around to fight with Gray who was seated behind him. Gajeel was just content with both of them finishing school and not having to blow the money on a GED later. But obviously the Heartfilia family had the highest expectations for their daughters. Levy had a sash around her robe that said valedictorian, and Lucy's said salutatorian. Which had to be a proud moment for their family but while Levy and Lucy had big smiles on their face the blonde man in the middle of the picture didn't, and the women by his side only had a half smile where they tried a little harder to look happy, but he knew from Lucy that her parents just expected greatness and anything less than was unacceptable. You could tell whose mom belonged to who. Lucy was a spitting image of her mother, and Levy's mom looked like a her, her long white blonde hair was the most obvious difference. "Man, a family full of blondes, does that mean you naturally have blonde hair sis?"

"Oh? Yeah. But if you tell anybody I'll deny it with my dying breathe." Gajeel couldn't believe she admitted it, or the fact she laughed about it. In every interview they always asked her about her hair, and she just told them all it grew out of her head blue. Which obviously wasn't true, but he'd never seen a picture with like her hair faded or her roots showing or even a before picture with her having different colored hair. Even the color of blue was consistent, no pictures of it darker or lighter, so how the hell did she keep it that way? Juvia decided to go blue a couple years ago, and she was a natural brunette, so there was a lot of bleaching and dying her hair to keep it up or wearing hats to hide the color change. "But I've been a "blunette" as people call it for over ten years how."

"What made you dye your hair? And why'd you choose blue?" Gajeel was glad Natsu was asking all the hard questions he wanted to know, he was waiting for Levy to get annoyed with his prying, but she didn't even seem phased by it. It must be a question she got all the time, in interviews she dodged it, but she didn't seem to mind sharing the information in a personal conversation.

"I was always getting mistaken for Lucy. Obviously, we look a lot more different now, but growing up people could barely tell us apart. For a long time, everyone thought we were twins, being the same age and all didn't help that any. But I got really sick and tired of always being called Lucy so, I did it to look different from her. My mom took me to dye my hair for the first time when I was eight, and she let me choose whatever color I wanted. So, I went with vibrant ass cerulean blue and never turned back." Gajeel didn't have any siblings, so he didn't have to worry about looking like someone enough to be mistaken for them. He had a younger cousin who looked like him, but because Gajeel was older people were always calling Rogue by his name.

"So, is Lucy like the girl sister, and you're like the tough one with tattoos?" There was that cute laugh again, Gajeel only briefly had a look at the tattoos on her thighs, he knew she had quite a bit more that were hidden, but he didn't plan on asking about them, if she didn't bring it up first. Natsu of course didn't pull any punches.

"I don't know about tough, but I am pretty tattooed, and very girly. All my tattoos are girly honestly. Books and birds, and flowers mostly." Gajeel wasn't sure if she was going to give them a tour or not, but in the middle of a restaurant wasn't the place for it. Levy perked her head up in thought when Gajeel asked her which one hurt the worst, he was expecting her to point to one of the side pieces he knew she had hidden under her shirts. He was surprised when she balled her hands into fists and placed them on the table and told them her left hand hurt the worst. In an elegant script her right hand said "read" and her left said "more" which are tattoos he didn't even know she had or noticed the whole time he was sitting across from her. "The right hand was fine; the left was a bitch. I got these in Australia about a month ago."

"Okay, so how many do you have? I know Luce only had the one on her hand, and she said that was her matching tattoo with you. But Lucy said she was scared after the first one especially with how your dad reacted." Gajeel always noticed the dainty pink symbol on the back of Lucy's hand and he thought it was a weird ass place for a tattoo, he didn't know it was her only one though. Of course, Natsu was an expert on that, but what the hell possessed his girl to get her first tattoo in a place as visible as her hand.

"Hmmm." Gajeel wasn't surprised when she had to think about all of her tattoos, he was sure she didn't look at them all the time he wanted as she was counting to herself. "Right now, I have ten. But only eight of them I'm willing to show you or talk about." Gajeel knew about six of them from online, with her knuckles that upped the number to the eight she was speaking of. He did his best not to think about where the other two she was shy about were hidden, but he sure as hell was going to be thinking about them and her tonight. He still couldn't believe she was sleeping in his bed earlier, he was fucked up enough to wish his pillow still smelled like her by the time he got back home. It was almost a guarantee that he was about to have the ultimate wet dream tonight, and he had zero control over it.

Before he could even stop Natsu from asking where the other two were, the waitress did by bringing out their food. While she laid out a plate in front of him and Levy, she handed Natsu a bag and he looked just as confused as Gajeel did. "Wait... I didn't order my food to go."

"I did, Lucy works around, here right? I ordered her food too, so you can go surprise her with lunch." Natsu didn't even question her on it, he gave Levy a hug and shot her a thanks before leaving them to their own meals. But Gajeel immediately noticed two things as his cousin walked away. He was now alone with Levy, and she had just purposely gotten rid of Natsu.


	9. Chapter 9

"Alright best man!" The smile she shot him was brilliant. Gajeel had seen it in countless times in in videos of her online and the pictures she posted. But in person, it was everything he thought it would be and more. That smile being directed towards him was just the icing on the cake, before he could even stop himself, he was staring at her glossed in a rosy pink even as she was eating. "We have so much we need to catch up on, and lots of planning to do." She spoke to him between shoving fries into her mouth, Gajeel never considered something as simple as eating cute, but he envied each fry that passed her lips and snapped himself out of the trance before he started imagining all the places, he'd rather have her lips. "Now that half of the happy couple is gone, we can finally get some work done!"

"Yeah, makes sense." Gajeel wanted to kick himself for the sad excuse of an attempt of contributing to the conversation. When she ditched Natsu he wasn't expecting an impromptu love confession or anything but plans for someone else's wedding didn't even cross his mind. Gajeel could feel the nerves in his stomach grow while he watching his cousin walk away. In a normal situation he would be glad to see Natsu go, Gajeel spent most of his life trying to get him out of his hair. But as his older cousin he felt like it was job to keep him safe and out of trouble. Even as an adult Natsu was still that annoying little cousin that took his shit without asking and got ever single nerve Gajeel had. But right now, Natsu was the only buffer he had between him, Levy and the fact he could barely form sentences around her. Levy didn't even seem bothered by it, Gajeel knew nothing about being famous, but he was an expert at one-sided conversations. A lot of the time interrogating people and talking to victims was all about waiting and seeing how they reacted to certain triggers.

"Well, what did you have in mind?" Gajeel was surprised to see her pull out a second phone. Identical to the one she had sitting next to her on the table, in everything but color. The one on the table was a vibrant bedazzled blue that matched the color of her hair. The one in her hands was a sparkly orange and he didn't know where the hell she just pulled it from. Gajeel guesses it wasn't strange for a famous person to have more than one phone. It made sense to have one for personal use and one for business if you wanted to separate the two. The practice was common among criminals, but usually the business one was a shitty burner phone that they could ditch easily, and not a second iPhone X. Gajeel wouldn't be surprised if the shimmering gems on the backs of her phones were real diamonds. The blue one spelled out "Levy" in an elegant script, and the orange one spelled out the word "Gear." He could tell if you placed them side by side it would spell out her stage name and Gajeel wondered if she updated phones every time a new one came out. On one hand he found it cute how she personalized her phones, on the other it made him think about how just how different their worlds were. Gajeel's own shitty phone was a couple years old, rocking a shattered screen from years of abuse from taking down criminals and rocking the same shitty free phone case that it came with when he bought the phone.

"I don't know, I have a lot of ideas but nothing solid yet. Have you already made plans for the bachelor party? Bar crawl? Casino? Strippers? A wild mixture of the three?" As best man it was Gajeel's job to pull off a decent party before his cousin tied the knot. But every time he tried to bring the subject up to the groom, Natsu would just brush him off. Gajeel didn't care enough to keep trying to get an answer out of him, so his plans were kind of up and the air, and he was just going to ask his coworkers where the best place to party was. A lot of the guys around his age were always inviting him out, but cop bars were only good for a discount and trading stories, and he got enough of hearing about work at work. "I feel like I'm so behind! I'm going to need all the help I can get, so let me apologize ahead of time for dragging you into bachelorette party business, when you already have enough on your plate." Damn, her pouting was even cuter than her smile, the way she poked out her cheeks was adorable to the point that he would gladly plan the whole bachelorette party and be the entertainment if she asked. It was one of his greatest shames, but he went through a Magic Mike phase back when he was worried about putting food on the table and putting himself through school. "I haven't even met any of Lulu's new friends yet, so I have no clue what I should even do for them."

Gajeel was already in better shape than her, at least he knew everyone that was going to be a part of Natsu's last night as a bachelor. Even if it was a night of drinking and messing around Natsu would be fine with the outcome. Lucy, on the other hand, was a little needier. "Don't worry about it, shorty. It's fine, my plans are only half-assed anyway." The dirty look she shot him was enough to make Gajeel's throat dry up. The mixture of her glare and her raised eyebrow made him wonder what they hell he said to piss her off. Even her glare was cute, but he was smart enough to know there could be some real anger behind it. Gajeel had been on the receiving end of one of Lucy's kicks a few times, and he didn't know if Natsu was going to survive being married to her. Cute but deadly could easily be a family trait. How the hell was he supposed to keep his bearings around a creature as gorgeous as this? It was no wonder that he was stuck in a cycle of being tongue-tied and staring at her like he never laid eyes on a woman before.

Why the hell did she have to be so young? Usually age was a deal breaker for him, last night being a fluke that was neither planned or initiated by him. He usually judged guys who went after jailbait and girls fresh out of high school. Gajeel was almost three years older than Natsu, who was three years older than Lucy, who was three months older than Levy. Adding it up it was almost six years, which was quite the age difference, usually he would be worried about what they would have in common, or about them being at different places in their life. But, right now all he could think about is how someone like her could ever be interested in a person like him. "I'm going to let the short comment slide, mostly because I'm not in a fighting mood, and I'm sure everyone seems short from your view. Here, give me your number. I asked Lu to give me you mine a few times, but I guess she just forgot." Gajeel liked to think he had a good memory, but he was forgetful about sometimes when it was something he didn't care about, he tried scanning his brain to recall at least a part of a conversation with Lucy trying to slip him her sisters' number. Levy handed him her blue phone across the table, it would have come across weird maybe even rude to ask her which one it is. was this her business phone she would be using to contact him? Or her personal one? Which one did she consider him? And would their conversations ever get past talk about their duties as maid of honor and best man?

The background picture on her phone of a younger her and Lucy made their resemblance much more apparent. They looked a lot more alike as children, almost twins, the most obvious difference was their eyes. Levy's being a warmer hazel compared to Lucy's dark brown. "Look I'm sorry for calling you short, I thought you already knew." An hour ago, he wouldn't have dreamed of making a comment like that, but the more he talked to her the easier it got to be around her, and he got the exact reaction he wanted. Levys jaw dropped in shock, and she shot him another dirty look that held no real anger behind it. There was a smile trying to fight its way through her pout, and her glare was more amused than anything.

"Oh, so you think you're funny?"

"Kinda." Teasing her just came to him naturally, he had all these plans of winning her over by being nice, but it all flew out the window the moment he had an opening to sass her. This wasn't exactly the best-case scenario, but it was a step up from just staring at her like an idiot. There was no fake anger behind her response this time, she was resting her face against her hand when she said just above a whisper how she didn't have a problem fighting boys. There was something about the little half smirk on her face that was making him think more into their friendly banter than he should have been. There was no way she could really be flirting with him right now, and just in case she was he had to keep up with her. "I guess that means I'm off the hook, since you know. I am a man. Plus miss Levy, you wouldn't stand a chance in a fight against me. I'd just have to put you in timeout for your bad behavior."

It wasn't a lie, she was a tiny little thing. Levy was more than a foot shorter than him, and even if she had half of Lucy's temper, she couldn't do much damage unless he allowed her to. He knew women were capable of a lot especially when they were mad, Gajeel had been on many domestic violence calls where the victim finally had enough of being abused and killed their husbands. Those calls were always hard, the victims were usually terrified of men, in those situations Gajeel usually called Juvia to come talk down the victim knowing the only thing he could do is make the situation worse. One call that still haunted him was when the husband was still alive when he got there, just with a hammer sticking out of the back of his head. If it wasn't his job to help the prick, he would have gladly just left him there and tended to the small woman covered in bruises that were both old and new.

"You're talking a lot of shit over there for someone with such long, pull able hair.

"I didn't think of you as someone who like to fight dirty."

"Well, you do have quite the size advantage, so I would just be evening the odds. I'm either gonna have to climb up you or pull you down to my size." Gajeel had one hell of a poker face, but there was no hiding the fact that her comment went straight between his legs. He wasn't sure if it was the comment itself, or the smile on her face that had him squirming in his seat. Gajeel knew he would never live it down, and his friends would have a field day kink shaming about it, but he enjoyed having his hair played with, and he loved to have it pulled. He never openly admitted this, most girls were too scared to even touch his hair, the occasionally one would run her fingers through it or something but nothing too crazy. The only person who had balls enough to even yank on his ponytail was Laxus, and it more than annoyed Gajeel that the action went straight to his groin. "Enough with the foreplay. I need to buy a bunch of penis-shaped things for Lucy's party, and if I sit here and flirt with you all day, I won't get a damn thing done. We should eat."

* * *

Levy was having a surprisingly good time having lunch with a man who barely spoke to her. The food was amazing, she couldn't remember the last time she ate something that wasn't considered healthy or had a conversation that didn't involve her job. She wasn't exactly trying to lay low, but she noticed more than a few people who either stared at her when they thought she wasn't looking or discreetly tried to take a picture of her. With the way she had the brim of her borrowed hat pulled down over her eyes, any picture taken would just look like any other blue haired girl eating lunch with a friend. "Okay, this is probably a weird question, but I've always been curious about this. Bachelorette parties are always covered in dicks, do bachelor parties decorate stuff in like boobs, or butts, or like lady parts?"

Gajeel looked confused and then laughed at her question, probably imagining a room decorated in such a way. "I've never seen no shit like that before short stuff, but I don't think that's a room I would want to be in with a bunch of guys." He had one more time to call her short before she punched him, but his reaction to the dirty look she was giving meant he understood her silent threat. "Sorry, I have a bad habit of giving people unwanted nicknames, and it's hard to stop once I start. I named my cat after my mentor, so let's just say he's less than amused when I slip up and call him a "good boy."" Levy could only imagine how awkward that had to be, maybe like how a kid could slip up and call a teacher mom. She was used to people calling her short all the time, but it didn't make it any less annoying."So, what's with chick parties and the dick thing? Never understood the appeal of walking around with a pink dick hanging around your neck."

Out of the corner of her eye Levy noticed the same waitress walk past for the third time in ten minutes. She didn't think anything of it at first, she noticed her walk by a few times earlier too. But she never stopped at a table near them, and Levy could practically feel her eyes glaring a hole into the back of her head. "I don't know, I guess it's just a tradition thing." If she was a fan, Levy kinda wished she would just come over and get the whole thing over with, but it could always be a case of the girl being one of Loke's fangirls who were usually mean to her until she explained that they were in fact not dating. This sort of thing happened all the time when she was out eating with the rest of the band, if it was one or two of them, they could usually get away with having a peaceful meal. But the four of them always got interrupted by people wanting pictures and autographs in the middle of their meal. Over the years they learned not to be bothered by it, just smile, wave and sign whatever item they were shoving in your face. "Even though I've been to more parties that I can count, I've never been to a bachelor party. So romcoms and google have been my best friend for planning."

Levy watched the staring waitress finally start to walk towards their table, but there was something off about the way she was acting. Usually when people approached her, they were either shy or excited when they came up to her. For some reason, this girl just looked pissed. "Are you fucking kidding me?" When the girl finally approached the table, Levy realized that the girls glare wasn't directed towards her like she though, but at the man sitting across from her. When Gajeel finally looked up at the girl he looked like he just saw a ghost and swore under his breath. "Last night wasn't humiliating enough? You had to show up to my job with another girl and embarrass me here too?" She was gorgeous, even when she was mad, she was breathtaking. Bright blue eyes, a white pixie cut that suited her face, and Levy couldn't help but notice that the girl was more than blessed in the one place she was lacking. Levy hated to admit that she still felt self-conscious about her lack of a larger chest. Both of her moms and her sister were all on the top-heavy side, but puberty came and went, and Levy still just had enough for a handful of boobs. When she was younger, she considered getting a boob job, but over the years the confidence in her own body grew and she didn't want to join the Hollywood stereotype by getting plastic surgery.

The first time Lucy told her about Gajeel she mentioned that he was on the popular side when it came to women, and some hopeful but letdown men, and Levy could be blind and still see why. It was obvious this was someone Gajeel had been seeing recently, and they just happened to have lunch in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ignoring the strange twinge of jealousy she felt, Levy wondered if she should try to jump in and explain to the girl that nothing was happening between the two of them. But with the verbal lashing she was giving Gajeel, she didn't really want all of that negative attention turned towards her. But the best man needed saving, so she was going to at least try to help him. "Hey, sorry to butt in," Levy looked down at the girl's nametag to put a name with a face. "Lisanna, but it's not what you think. It's completely innocent, we just met for the first time today."

The girl completely ignored her, and if her yelling at Gajeel wasn't bad enough, she dumped a glass of water over the top of his head before finally turning her attention towards Levy. The way she looked her up and down made Levy a little nervous and made her kind of wish that she didn't open her mouth now. The last thing she needed right now was a scandal but Gajeel looked like he needed some help, and she wasn't one to abandon someone in need. "Yeah, well I met him for the first-time last night, and there was nothing innocent about that. Do yourself a favor and run sweetheart, he's no good." Levy didn't know which thing to react to first, the waitress who just ran off crying, the soaked Gajeel across from her who was obviously struggling to keep his cool, or the stares or whispers from the other patrons in the restaurant.

"Let's go!" Levy threw money on table and dragged Gajeel by the amr into the mall, the last thing they needed to do was stick around and the girl come back with something either messier or more violent to attack Gajeel with. After they were a good distance away from the restaurant Levy followed the signs down the hallway and pulled him into the men's room. "Okay, let's get you cleaned up." There was only one other person in the restroom, and he seemed surprised both by her presence, and a Gajeel who's shirt was soaked from the dampness of his hair.

"Lady get out! You know this is the men's room, right?" Levy guessed most people would have that reaction to anyone of the opposite sex in their respected bathrooms. But she didn't really care about such things and as long as the person was there to use the facilities and not peep on people.

"You don't know what I've got going on down there." The man had a shocked look on his face and ran out before without washing his hands and she figured it was only a matter of time before mall security showed up. "I don't think there's much we can do about your hair, but let's at least get this wet shirt off of you." He was way too tall for her to be any help, and it wouldn't exactly be appropriate to help an almost stranger out of their clothes, but she could at least help dry him off. Levy yanked a handful of paper towels out of the dispenser as he pulled his shirt off. With the way he slicked back his hair, Levy could tell that he's done it a million times before. She was jealous with the way his hair just stayed in place while hers would have gotten wilder by the minute.

Great he's hot. He was already attractive, but the moment he took his shirt off, Levy had to fight her jaw from dropping. He looked like one of the damn love interests on the cover of her romance books, glistening muscles and all. If that wasn't bad enough, the flimsy paper towels were doing nothing to put a barrier between her hands and the parts of him she was trying to dry off. "I promise my intentions were way more innocent in my head, but now I'm just rubbing on you like some pervert."

He seemed amused by her discomfort, from the smirk on his face she could tell he noticed the redness of her cheeks. "I don't mind shorty. At. All." She took her stack of paper towels and smacked him on the chest, knowing it didn't cause any real damage. But she wasn't going to let the short thing slide a third time. "Sorry. I guess it slipped my mind. Been having a hell of day." There was no way he was going to be able to walk around in the soaked shirt on the sink, and even though she was sure a lot of people wouldn't mind it, he couldn't exactly walk around shirtless.

"How about you finish drying yourself off, and I'll go get you another shirt. What size do you wear? Do you want a certain kind?" Levy was going to be glad to put some distance between herself and the half-dressed man. Her job didn't leave much time for romance, and having a very attractive, wet, half-dressed man alone was bringing out her inner pervert.

"Extra-large, black, I'm not really picky..." Gajeel stopped her before she left the bathroom. "Look sorry you had to witness all that. You probably think I'm a scumbag or something, but that's honestly the affect I have on a lot of people." Levy felt bad that he was apologizing even though he was the one who got embarrassed. If anything, the girl should be ashamed of losing her cool like that in the middle of her job, but she could understand being upset and acting on your emotions. Levy was going to make sure to never mention this situation to her sister, and she was going to do her best to try to at least improve Gajeel's day.

"Well, if the dick doesn't have me like that, I don't want it." Levy couldn't help but laugh at her own joke, and the look on his face. "Sorry, sometimes I speak in memes. Be back in five!" It didn't take Levy long to find the store she was looking for, sure she could have got a black shirt from just about any store, but he didn't specify that he didn't want anything on it. The shirt wasn't hard to fine, and there was no line in the store she was back to the bathroom in under ten minutes. She held up the shirt to show Gajeel what she got him and couldn't help but laugh at his reaction. He was trying his best not to laugh at what she brought him, but she could see that he thought it was just as funny as she did. "Do you like it?"

"Really? Yeah, It's great. I'm sure your sister is just going to love this."


	10. Chapter 10

Gajeel wasn't much of a mall person, and but he was aware that this store existed. He had walked past this place a thousand times and even stopped in a few times to check out their sales on body jewelry. But Gajeel had never bothered made it to this section of the store. The front was full of things like novelty T-shirt's, coffee mugs, and bumper stickers. Surrounding the registers were large cases of body jewelry and candy, but the back section of the store would make a lesser man blush. Levy looked so out of place next to a wall full of a sad excuse for underwear. It was the kinda shit that women wore during the first month of dating before switching to sweatpants and stained T-shirt's. Behind them was a wall of different colored sex toys, Gajeel was both curious and disturbed that there were so many options. Some of them looked rather realistic, and Gajeel didn't really want to know what the use was of the ones with balls attached to them. Other ones didn't look anything like a penis and were hot pink with various buttons and beads.

The third wall in the back of the store was the one Levy was interested in, an assortment of pink necklaces, and straws, and pins shaped like dicks and various items like shirts that said things like bride, and bride trims on it. There were cake pans, and candy and for some reason pasta shaped like dicks, and the things that weren't edible donned smiling faces. "So many penises, so little time. I feel like I'm back at work," Levy said scanning the wall a few times before she stood on her tip toes to get a better look at an all-white chalice with the word "bride" on it. God, she was a tiny little thing. Even if she reached up her fingers wouldn't have come close to touching the cup she had her eye on. Gajeel reached above her and handed her the cup. "Oh, thanks! Aren't you useful to have around?" Levy seemed happy with her find until she turned the cup around and her face dropped, "And there's a bedazzled dick on the back... Okay, so why are giant pink dicks the official mascot for brides? I don't think my sister would go for this. I'm gonna see if they have anything less penisey."

Gajeel had to agree, he knew Lucy well enough to know she would be way too embarrassed to walk around with a giant pink dick on her head. He wanted to follow Levy to the front of the store just to get out of the naughty section but didn't want to seem like a lost puppy fresh on her heels. currently, he was eye level with an assortment of fuzzy handcuffs and he felt like that was a little more his speed. He noticed a much smaller men's section on the other side, and he didn't really want to be caught over there either. But anything was better than standing between candy dicks and vibrating ones.

The men's toys were a lot more discreet looking than the women's ones. He supposed some men used the women's ones too, but he couldn't really see women having a use for the men's ones. Some looked like strange cup holders, while others were an obvious replication or different parts of the women's anatomy. Gajeel was curious if the ones with the fake pink lips felt the same as the one that looked like a fake butt. Gajeel never really had a need for one, but he could understand the benefits of it. Gajeel was admittedly every bit of slut Lucy called him out on being, but even he went through dry spells. Men didn't usually discuss how easy it was to overwork your risk during a session of self-love, but it could really be a mood killer trying to decide between finishing, and giving your aching wrist a break. Even with masturbation being a normal thing, he wouldn't be caught dead making some poor teenager ring one up knowing he was gonna go home and stick his dick in it.

"Did you need help finding anything?" Shit! Gajeel could feel himself damn near jump out of his skin. He didn't know how the little sales associate snuck up on him, but at least it was the one guy in the store and not one of the girls.

"No! I mean nah, I'm fine, just waiting for my… friend." That wasn't a correct title for her, but it was the least awkward. Calling her his celebrity crush or the love of his life would have been a lot more honest. But things were weird enough standing in a section of sex toys with some kid who worked in the mall.

"Well let me show you the sale items, while you wait." Gajeel mostly drowned out the sale associates speech about the best prices and materials, but it got really weird when the guy started talking about which items were in his personal collection. Gajeel was almost concerned when the kid pulled out something that was a life-sized replica of a woman's butt and thighs. "We have full-sized dolls online too, a lot of them look like famous people but we had to give them different names so we don't get sued." Gajeels throat dried up when the associate flipped past a picture of the likeness of Levy, it was named "blue haired babe" instead of her name, but it was very obvious who it was supposed to be.

Gajeel was both relieved and worried when Levy came back. On one hand, she probably wouldn't be comfortable with the idea of a sex doll of her existing. On the other hand, the guy stopped over sharing his personal experience with the stores greatest hits once she was in earshot. "Hey Gajeel, you wanna get out of here?" Asked Levy. "I think I've had my fair share of dicks today."

"Please."

X

"Okay so the mall was a total bust, I think I'm going to stick to ordering everything online. Maybe I'll hire a party planner? I don't know… Is that weird? Is that how normal people do it?" Gajeel didn't know if she was talking to him or talking to herself. Levy leaned her back against the wall of the elevator and pulled off her hat the first time since they left his apartment. "I haven't even been to a wedding before, and all the parties I've been to have been planned by somebody else. This is stressing me out." Levy ran her fingers through her hair, making her already messy hair fall out the bun she put it fall apart. She was even cute with hat hair.

"I usually just drink and leave at all the weddings I go to. Being in one has been kind of a pain in my ass too," Gajeel said. "I don't even think Natsu sees me as his best man, I think he just didn't want to admit Gray's his best friend."

"That's the one he's always fighting with right? I mean when he started talking about his groomsmen he kinda bad-mouthed all of you. But I thought that was just how men show affection towards each other," Levy said earning a laugh from Gajeel.

"I guess that's kinda true, most of the time I want to kill Natsu, but at the same time, I'd kill somebody if they touch him. What'd that ass hole say about me?"

Levy let out a giggle, "he said something about you being a professional cock-block."

"Yeah, well it's a small apartment, with really thin walls. I gotta do something to get by. Speaking of which, what's it like staying in hotels all the time. You ever just miss your own bed?"

"I'll let you ask me that again once you see my room." With the hotel having a tunnel to the mall Gajeel didn't see the point in moving his car, when Levy invited him up to hang out in her room he didn't think there was anything weird about it until he saw that her name was printed on her key and she pushed the button to the 29th floor. He had never seen someone swipe their hotel key over a sensor in an elevator before, or that such a thing exists but after an extended ride in the elevator and his ears popping on the way up the doors finally opened to the nicest looking hallway he's ever seen. He felt underdressed, for some reason the lobby was on the fifth floor instead of the first and when they approached the desk everyone was dressed in expensive looking suits and seemed to straighten up the minute Levy gave her name. Levy was as underdressed as him, but she didn't seem bothered by their difference in attire.

Gajeel followed behind Levy to the double doors at the end of the hallway, she waved her key over the sensor and opened the doors to one of the biggest hotel rooms he had ever seen. It was bigger than his apartment. Twin white couches with blue throw pillows sat in front of a fireplace and an oversized dining room table sat in front of the doors that lead to a balcony. Most hotel rooms were all that impressive, usually just a bed you didn't really want to sleep in. A mini fridge full of overpriced booze, a chair, and a tv. Gajeel hadn't even caught sight of a bed yet, but strangely there was a set of stairs just to their left. "I would greatly prefer if you took off your shoes, but I'm not going to make you if you don't want to." When she opened the door to their right there were already two other pair of Levy sized shoes sitting on a shelf in an otherwise empty closet. Following her lead, he kicked his boots off and sat them nicely next to her discarded pair.

"This is a lot of space for such a tiny person." His comment earned him a glare followed by an amused look from Levy.

"Rude. There's usually about five of us in here, so I guess you have a point," Levy said. "Come on, they probably unpacked my laptop upstairs. Plus my back kind of hates me from playing Goldilocks between you and Lucy's beds." At the top of the stairs, she pulled back sliding doors and revealed another large room. This one with an oversized bed, across from the biggest tv he's seen outside of movie theaters. Levy crawled towards the middle of her bed, her shorts riding up just enough to expose the curve of where her butt was separate from her thighs. Gajeel went to sit in the armchair next to her bed until she patted the spot next to her, an invitation he wasn't going to ignore.

X

At some point, Gajeel went from sitting to lying down. this was probably the most comfortable bed he had the pleasure of being in and was ignoring whatever movie levy put on. He was somewhere between fighting the urge to yawn and staring at her, not that she noticed either thing. Besides the sound of the tv and the clicking of her keyboard the room was silent, but a comfortable one. Gajeel wasn't one for forced conversation, neither one of them had spoken in almost a half hour. She was so wrapped up in whatever she was doing on her computer, she probably forgot he was there. "You know Gajeel, you're totally free to ditch me. I'm sure it can't be too interesting to watch me look up stuff I'm later gonna have to scrub off my browser history later. I promise I'm usually a lot more fun than this."

Gajeel yawned, barely registering her apologizing for a reason he couldn't figure out. "I'd be doing this at home anyway, plus it's been a shit week so I'm not gonna complain about the peace. Plus I already like you better than Lucy, she burns all my food and talks during movies."

"Hey! That's my sister you're talking about!" Levy said trying not to laugh.

"Yeah, which means you know what I'm talking about firsthand." A pillow came down on top of his hard. Yeah, Levy had a violent streak just like Lucy, but it was a halfhearted assault. Gajeel grunted when the pillow made contact but made no attempt to move it off of his head. The pillow was blocking out the light in the room, and he yawned again.

"Keep bad-mouthing my sister and I'll have to fight you." There was no real malice in her threat, she seemed more amused than angry with him. Gajeel's only sibling was a decade younger than him and they didn't grow up together, so the closest thing he really had to that type of relationship was Natsu. Sure he loved shitting on Natsu, but when other people did it Gajeel jumped to his defense. The way that Lucy always talked about her sister, Gajeel knew they were pretty close. Him trash talking Lucy with things that were true had Levy jumping to her defense, but her laugh let him know she agreed with his complaints.

"I'm pleading the fifth."

 _"Gajeel if you keep being naughty, I'm going to have to punish you." Her comment was more flirt than threat, images of being tied to her bed flashed through his mind. Not being able to touch her would be bad enough. But being tied to the bed, and completely ignored while she reads was a particularly creative threat she made in the past._

 _"Well, what happens if I'm on good behavior?" Levy abandoned her laptop on the other side of the bed during his first shady Lucy comment. She laid facing him, fighting her own yawns while she was throwing out threats. This was one of the very few situations they were eye to eye. She was so much shorter than him, even when she did things like jump into his arms, one of them was looking down to meet the others gaze._

 _"Whatever you want." She was so tiny it took him almost no effort to pull her into his arms. Kissing her was still one of his favorite things to do, he could spend hours just kissing her lips, her neck, her thighs, whatever exposed skin he could find. She always squirmed under his touch, he was often met with her giggles if he touched her somewhere particularly ticklish._

 _"If that's the case I'll stay on my best behavior," he whispered in her ear. His face buried in her blue hair, as his lips found her neck. He did his best not to squish her when he rolled her onto her back, her legs wrapping around his waist when their lips finally met._

 _"You're lying." Levy ran her fingers through his hair, stopping his long locks from smothering her like it usually did when he was on top of her._

 _"I might be." Gajeel admittedly enjoyed a tug at his hair here and there, but it had nothing on the way it felt when she ran her nails across his scalp. It was enough for him to come undone. Finding each of the excessive amount of buttons on her tiny shorts, he unfastened each one and met each inch of newly exposed skin with a kiss._

"Stop teasing me!" Levy spoke just above a whisper, even with the low lighting he could see her head against the phone. "Oh my god lu, you're the worst!" The sun must have gone down hours ago, through the window he could see the city lights against a dark sky. Just how long had he been asleep? "Lulu I'm not waking him up, I'm just gonna let him sleep." Gajeel squeezed his eyes shut trying to let them adjust to the light from the tv. "you'd be a lot less cranky if you went to sleep. Maybe you and Natsu should take the chance to enjoy the empty apartment and be as gross as you want to be." Levy laughed at whatever Lucy's response, "yes, yes. I know. I love you too! Goodnight."

At some point during his nap, she changed. From what he could tell she was in an oversized sleep shirt and her hair was pulled into a bun on the top of her head. Gajeel was guessing the blanket pulled up to his shoulders was the work of her too. She hadn't noticed him wake up yet, and he was a little relieved by that. Only his imagination would be wild enough to give him a less than innocent dream about a woman sitting two feet away from him. Gajeel wished he could just avoid letting her know he was awake and fall back to sleep, but his bladder was screaming.

"Uh, Levy?" She whipped her head around to face him, and her eyes widened in surprise at the sound of his voice.

"Oh, look who's finally up?"

"Where's the bathroom?"

"It's right through there," Levy said pointing the door between the tv and the window. Gajeel was glad it was nearby and not somewhere down the stairs. Gajeel was glad for his choice in wearing jeans, sweatpants wouldn't have camouflaged the very obvious boner he was packing right now. He didn't know if he was up because of his dream, because he had to pee, or if it was just a rather annoying case of morning wood. Gajeel didn't expect the bathroom to be anything less than fancy as fuck. He would honestly be surprised if there went 100 bills in the place of toilet paper, but that was an issue for another time. He looked around the room and found his and her sinks in a long counter, a glass shower, a bathtub, but for some reason, there wasn't a damn toilet in sight.

Gajeel peeked his head back out the door. "Am I stupid, or is there no toilet in here?" Levy gave him an amused look, Gajeel knew he had to be missing something. He figured it would have been easier to ask her than to run around looking for this phantom toilet with a full bladder.

"There should be a door on your left." At first glance, Gajeel would have thought this was a closet, but once he opened the door he could see that it was a small room that just had a toilet, a tv, and a small table with magazines and a remote. This room would be torture for someone who hated small spaces, but apparently rich people shit in style. Gajeel stared at his reflection while he washed his hands, his black eye didn't look any better. It honestly looked worse, hopefully, the last of the bruising was done and it could finally start to heal. After peeing his dick thankfully decided to behave itself, and Gajeel got to avoid doing the walk of shame back to Levy with an erection. How the hell did he end up in this situation? She was nice, as nice as he thought she would be. More gorgeous in person, stupid rich, and way out of his league. Gajeel needed to leave before he fucked things up and made her hate him.

"Sorry, I forget that it's not exactly normal to everyone for a toilet to be separate from the rest of the bathroom," Levy said from her side of the bed. Gajeel could tell that she moved farther to the right and away from him during his nap. Another reminder that they were complete strangers and he was invading her space. "Do you feel better after your nap? You missed dinner, do you want me to order you something from room service?"

"Nah. I'm fine, I'm gonna head home anyway. I ain't mean to take up your bed or fall asleep on you like that. Guess I'm just a bad host," Gajeel said. He looked at the alarm clock on the end table and saw that it was almost 3 am. If he remembered correctly the last time he looked at his phone it was a little after six. Levy's overly expensive bed put his ass to sleep for around nine hours, no wonder his bladder was screaming and his stomach ached for a meal.

"What? No way! It's too late to be running around right now." She was right that this was one of the more dangerous times to be traveling at night. Bars and clubs usually closed at two, which meant the drunk drivers were in their way home. The reality of how weird it was to be around her finally hit him and a big part of him wanted to go. But her wanting him to stay even just for safety reasons gave him false hope he didn't need.

"I should be fine, I'm a careful driver. I'm sure I already overstayed my welcome, and Lucy's probably gonna get all stabby the next time she sees me."

"I already handled Lucy, I would just ignore the group chat on your phone. I might have riled her up earlier. Plus there's a good chance Lu and her honey are taking advantage of your absence and I doubt you wanna walk in on them like defiling your couch." Gajeel wanted to disagree with her, to fight harder to leave, but he found himself sitting back on his side of the bed considering the points she was making.

Gajeel just changed the subject, not agreeing to stay, but he made no life to leave. "Is this bed magic or something? I can't remember the last time I slept like that." Gajeels own bed wasn't terrible, it was old but it wasn't bad. Something about this bed made him want to aim for a couple more hours of sleep just because he could.

"Don't worry, it gets me all the time. I woke up like an hour before you. I think I just sleep better with someone in the bed with me, so I'm going to have to insist that you stay. And help me eat all the room service I ordered while you were in the bathroom."

Gajeel didn't understand why she wanted him to stay, but if she was going to bribe him with good food and a magic bed, who was he to stay no. "Alright so about this group chat?"


End file.
